This is a little pointless since the original post stated GF3 and
specifically not MX, but anyway....
Just to clear this up a bit, and I'm by no means a DX expert, we need to
know the differences between the DX versions and how DX is used.
When a game is programmed for D3D, it's programmed using a version of DX.
New versions are backwards compatible, but old versions can't be forward
compatible (of course). It's kind of like when I switched from Chief
Architect 7 to 9. 9 has more options and a different way of handling
things, but it will bring up ver. 7 files. Version 7 won't bring up ver. 9
files, however. Even if I draw a house plan in Chief Architect 9 and don't
use any features that are not available in version 7, version 7 can't bring
up the plans.
Games written with DX9 simply require that you have DX9 installed on your
system (to decode the game properly), not that your video card has to
interpret DX9 instructions. DX9 is backwards compatible with video cards
that only support DX8 or DX7, but those cards can't use new "DX9 only"
instructions.
To my knowledge, there are few current games that use DX9 'only'
instructions. I'm not aware that DX has any specific hardware acceleration.
That's done with your video card hardware and drivers. It's only different
programming options/choices and features. Some DX9 algorithms may be more
efficient than previous DX versions, so they could be performed faster. It's
likely that DX9 will give us better texture options and a few more features.
I hope this clears things up a bit.

Now, for the FX5200. In most games, according to the charts I've seen, it's
faster than some GF-MX cards and slower than others (like the MX460). Since
it's not a 'fast' card, graphics options are likely to be turned down in
order to get acceptable frame rates in the games you play. So, being capable
of interpreting DX9 instructions is kind of a moot point.

Gary


--
Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com


"Asestar" )_nospam_ wrote in message
...
NFSU is NOT a DX9 game. I can run this game with ALL graphic option on my
radeon8500le, which is dx8 card. There are no dx9 games released yet,
might
have to wait untill doom3 or hl2 comes out.

"Tim W." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:37:34 GMT, "Asestar"
)_nospam_ wrote:

Yepp... that's definitly better analogy.
But aren't dx9 capable cards (5700, 9600 for example) suppose to be
faster
in dx9 games (when come out) than non-dx8 cards (ti4400 or 9500) of
similiar
class and speed?

Actually, in a DX9 game like Need For Speed Underground, there are a
lot of eye candy features that you can't turn on unless your card has
DX9 support. It's not a speed issue so much as an issue of
capability. Even using an FX5200 allows you to select visual features
that are not available with a non-DX9 card.
Enjoy,

TLW