But they will not release it now

Jan 3, 2007 09:58 GMT  ·  By

No, I'm not playing with you. And I know that all the G80 owners hate me at the moment but it seems that Nvidia plays hard to get. And since that statement alone won't help you a lot, let me detail some facts that surround the DirectX 10 story and the 8800 cards.

NOW, now, I'm not the one to blame for the fact that no DirectX 10 content is available. Maybe if 2 or 3 games come with support the new DirectX features, Nvidia will introduce the expected driver but it seems that it's a never-ending circle here. The games producers cannot risk and create a game that won't be fully DirectX 10 compatible since they lack the drivers and they can't test the interaction between the API and the video card.

Moreover, it's safe to say that there's no need for a driver when the appropriate SO is not yet available. I will not get too technical but in case you don't know, the only way to run DirectX 10 games is through Vista since it's the only SO that integrates the new API. I don't know why Microsoft chose not to integrate the DirectX 10 libraries into Windows XP but I guess that it has something to do with the launch of Vista.

However, as I've said, it seems that Nvidia has finally readied a working driver for Vista and its G80 cards. And yes, it's DirectX 10 ready. But it won't come out for another 3 weeks. My guess is it will go online only when Vista will be officially launched. I don't know if that's good or bad but I guess that they are not afraid of competition since the Vista will launch at the same moment when R600 comes out. And the new Radeon has a Vista driver too.