I purchased a BFG 8800 Ultra O/C DirectX 10 card for $800. This card has Nvidia technology in it, and I was told it would be the standard for DirectX 10. Now DirectX 10.1 has been released with Vista SP1, and my card is outdated.
I will now have to purchase a new card, running up to $1,000, to be able to use DirectX 10.1, which the manufacturer claims is not related to DirectX 10.
My warning is to make sure you are purchasing a DirectX 10.1 compatible card and not get misled, so that you are not forced to buy another.
Assassin's Creed takes full advantage of DirectX 10.1, to give you an example, and the performance gains for antialiasing are significant. Since finding this out, Nvidia has allegedly threatened Ubisoft to remove 10.1 from the game, since their 8xxx cards cannot function properly with it, because some of ATI's cards outperform theirs. That is quite a scandal in itself.
The response from BFG that I received was inadequate:
"This card is DirectX 10 compatible, we never claimed the card is DX 10.1 compatible. NVIDIA currently has not manufactured a DX 10.1 card. It is still undecided if it is technically possible or not to release a driver update that will allow for DX 10.1 compatibility or if this is a hardware restriction.
Unfortunately, we can not offer a trade up as your card was launched prior to February 21st.
Thank you,
Tony H
BFG Support"
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