Instantiating a Direct3D 10 hardware device requires Direct3D 10-capable graphics hardware with a Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver. As of the release of this Technology Preview, such hardware is not publicly available. A software fallback (the Direct3D 10 reference rasterizer) is provided.
Does this mean that if a user does not have any DX10 hardware and WDDM drivers, (or DX9 hardware and WDDM drivers?)
then the system will run using a software rasterizer instead? Ugh!
Anyone with any further insight into how this will work?
"...This news API will be composed of new and faster dynamic link libraries (DLLs) and will run much faster (so they say).
Microsoft has decided that backward compatibly with DirectX 9,8,7 isn't really necessary as there will probably will be even less compatible with Vista.
Even so, dear Microsoft hasn't totally forgotten us. Some sort of “compatibility” will be available through a software layer (probably some emulation) which will have its price in system resources, as it will run much slower. The good news is that DirectX 10 will relieve some of the burden on the CPU..."
