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Installing DirectX 9.0c parallel to Directx10


DavidZill

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  • 1 month later...

Finally got a PC that I think will run SBPro. 4GB RAM, 8800GTS 512 video card, 20" wide screen monitor.

But, it is a Vista machine.

Are there any dangers / downsize to loading directx 9.0c in parallel? Mess up windows update? Anything like that? I stopped trying to keep up with all the windows stuff years ago. Barely have time to play SB let alone do all that.

Hope to get back at it...

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8800 GPU will run Sb swimmingly. i'm running it perfectly on an aging 7900 with barely any hiccups, and the settings on mid-high, and a screen resolution of... well i just run it in windowed mode and scale the window to my 1600 by 1024 desktop. so with 8800 you should be able to max out all the settings and run it at a similar resolution, along with some mipmapping too.

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Installing DirectX 9 parallel to DirectX 10 is possible under Vista and, thanks to the virtualization of unsigned system files, won't interfere with the original Windows installation.

A word of caution though; I recommend generally not to exceed the 50% threshold in Steel Beasts' Details settings (Alt+D) for the ground clutter objects. Some drivers may crash, some will start rendering funky stuff, sometimes distant trees will start looking weird. That can easily be avoided by keeping the ground clutter slider at relatively low levels (it's just stealing frame rate anyway).

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Prior to Vista, if an installation program was faulty because the programmer was lazy and didn't adhere to Microsoft's recommended procedures it could create all kinds of problems. For example, not running properly if you didn't have admin privileges with your user account (which at the same time is a significant security risk since all viruses and trojan horses that a user might accidentally start would run in the same admin context and be given full power to modify the operating system to suit their nefarious schemes). Or such an installation routine would install an old DirectX version because the programmer forgot to implement a check whether a newer DirectX version was already installed. Or it installed an outdated DLL which then created problems with some other application or service.

etc.

So, MS decided that this could not go on. At the same time they still wanted to maximize compatibility. So, the idea was to let installation files do whatever they want, BUT they would only THINK that they just installed a system file when, in reality, the installation path would be redirected into a safe directory where it would NOT overwrite existing system files. Vista then keeps track of the "system files" that this application expects to find and launches them along with this application while all other programs still access the "official" version.

That's more or less it, in a nutshell, as far as I understood it from a number of PC magazine articles.

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Dusted off the Pro PE CD and got it installed.

Direct x9.0c installation went perfect per the instructions above.

Sequential version updates went perfect.

Only glitch I have found so far is that the frame rates don't display in the tank range? Did on one of the earlier versions but not later.

System: Vista, 3.0 ghz, dual core, 8800 gts, 4 gig ram.

Now I have to get my CH Products Fighterstick all programmed and I'll be good to go. Work will keep me offline until the fall for the most part but I have tons of practice to do anyhow. Had to grab my old book to remember which buttons on the key board did what!

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