Windows Vista gave us the gift of volumetric clouds and hemoglobin-melonin shaders with a variety of other new technologies. Apparently XP could not handle the DX10 architecture which we have all come to love. Little do they know that this so called limitation is well known to be lie. XPS not being able to handle the new API is like saying the PS3 can’t handle shading because the XMB is limiting it. How are those two related…they are not…so why XP can not ‘handle’ DX11 or even 10 is beyond me.

To prove this statement I went out searching for a way to get DX10 on my XP machine. By no surprise I found thousands of articles pointing me to a download of DX10 for XP. (If you would like a link you can go HERE. To test if your computer has indeed updated type “dxdiag” into a run dialog, the window should have DirectX 10 somewhere (bottom).
So why do companies lie and tell us we can not run this API. Well we live a capitalist society, where money is the name of the game. So if Nvidia can force you to buy a new piece of hardware and Crytek can back them up…why not… That is why DirectX 11 won’t be able to run on Vista and diffidently not on XP….so they say. I will bet within the first 2 months eager who want DX11, who are in love with XP will find a way to get DX11 working also there will be a bunch of new applications to try to make Windows 7 a optional upgrade instead of mandatory.

The only reason to upgrade your Video Card should be because of memory or pipes or shader architecture or efficiency not because of APIs.