on the Voodoo issue My bad , I was thinking of the early cards with 256 colour mode textures as used in Quake, you are right in that they all had 16 bit color, I stopped using them and went to Nvidia since Nvidia cards where cheaper, DB classic had always had an issue with Voodoo cards though, we had a whole spate of people who all had the same problems with getting Voodoo card to run DB, nowdays we don`t get that since nobody is running Voodoo cards any more.
the difference between what version of DirectX a card supports fully and what version it CAN run is the nub, for example my GeForce4Mx came out well before DX7, never mind about DX9.0c, but it can run DX9.0c and it can run programs from Darkbasic Pro just fine as long as they don`t want later shader versions, remember that DX is backwards compatable to DX7 at least.
the post I was replying to in the original instance said that he could not run Pro since he did not have DX9.0c, I said (correctly) that DX9.0c is a free download, that he could install it on his sytem (correct), and that he could run DB pro if he did (correct), I never did say he could run the latest shader demo from Nvidia at 400fps, I would never expect anyone to think that could be the case.
since the poster already was able to run Darkbasic it seems a safe bet that he has a 3D card, DX9.0c will install on any system that runs windows, he has a 3D card, he can run Pro, Darkbasic MAD then said you need 128mb of video ram to run DX9.0, thats stupid, you can run it on any card I know of, just don`t expect 400fps all the time.
Darkbasic MAD then started quoteing you as though I was just posting lies or something, I was and am sure of my facts, you said
Quote: "Whether DX9 works or not has nothing to do with how much memory your card has - it's to do with whether or not the GPU on it supports the DX features.
Some older cards will not be DX9 compatible"
the GPU does not have to support all of the DX features, in fact all it has to be able to do is to render 2D, in which case it uses primarily Directdraw to render the screen, you can use a card that has no 3D ability at all, it won`t run any DB apps, but you can use DX9 with it, if you have 3D acceleration then DX will use what it can get, any calls to unsupported features are ignored, this is when people post saying that a shader just gives them a black object or whatever, since the feature is not supported then it just isn`t used, you can still run the program though, even alter it to compensate for the lack of that feature with the availability functions.
as for your second observation, I tried swapping in the oldest card I have (a PCI Mentor video card a bit slower than a TNT2), and apart from XP complaining about the drivers (there are newer drivers now), it worked with a simple DB Pro app just fine, that card was over 10 yrs old, so up to a decade back the cards seem supported.
the point is, your card does not have to support all DX9.0c features to run under DX9.0c, in fact it just has to able to show video, XP (or any version of windows past 3.1) uses Directx to draw the screen, are you suggesting all new office computers have Radeon9800pro cards in them?, even the aged and slothfull Intel Extreme(ly slow) chipset on my oldest lappy works under 9.0c, and that (afaik) doesnt even have shader ver 0.00000001a, in fact the Intel Extreme chipset can be thrashed handsomely by most budget video cards over £20
just wanted to point out I was not lying or trying to cause someone unwanted hassle, you can install 9.0c and run Pro, even on "unsupported" cards, all that definition is there for is to convince people they NEED a "supported" card with the associated cash transaction, actualy they don`t unless they want ALL the features added to 9.0c, you can write code in Pro on a GeForce4Mx (most definitley unsupported since it predates dx7, never mind about 9.0c), I know because I have done so and still do so at times, and if you look it up I am sure that card will be "unsupported", but it still works fine, I just can`t use shaders, no great loss.
Me!
we know where area 51 is, but where are areas 1 to 50?, and what do they do there?.
