Direct X 9.0 upgrade safe?

[simon707]

Hi i need to upgrade my direct X to version 9.0. Right now i have what my pc calls DirectX 8.x [build 881].

But i'm wondering if it's safe to do so without upgrading my video and audio drivers first. In DirectX fax page is says: "your existing drivers should be as compatible with DirectX 9.0 as they were with DirectX 8.1,"

But i don't know if that would include version 8.x.?

I'm wondering because i have a seperate dilema about updating my chipset driver before I can update my video driver wich i'll figure out seperatley---but for now i 'm just wondering if it's safe to update my direct X to version 9 without any major system crahses/freeze ups.

thanks for your time Simon707.

 

[cdogg]

Unless you run the latest audio/video software (games, music editing, etc), you likely won't see any benefit in upgrading.

However, if you're video card is new enough to support DirectX 8.1 internally, then there could be some benefits. Your card needs to be a GeForce3 or newer (GeForce4 MX doesn't count) on the Nvidia side, or a Radeon 8500 or newer if it's ATI. If so, upgrade DirectX first, then install the latest audio/video drivers. If your card doesn't fall into that category, then making the upgrade will likely make no difference.

According to Microsoft, DirectX releases are intended to be fully backward compatible meaning that even if your hardware doesn't take advantage of the newer code, it can still run in an older state. That's the theory anyway. All MS can say is that there aren't any known issues.

Keep in mind also that DirectX 9 does not run in Win95, and if it were me, I'd probably think more about upgrading the OS to XP if I was worried about the latest multimedia support.


~cdogg
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