Installing DirectX 11 Under Windows Vista

Microsoft has good reason to be pleased with its launch of Windows 7, because for one, it was fairly smooth, unlike Vista's, and two, consumers are actually quite pleased with it. For gamers, a major technology came pre-installed with Windows 7, that of course being DirectX 11. Although once rumored to be a Windows 7 exclusive, that was put to rest shortly after the OS' launch. Don't expect to install it on XP, though... this is Vista and 7 only.

At this point in time, it's difficult to install DirectX 11 if you don't know where to look, because Microsoft has not made an installer available for public consumption at the usual sites, such as the official DirectX site. Rather, if you install DirectX from most sources, you'll get either 9 or 10, not 11. The skeptic in me says that Microsoft is complicating the process on purpose in order to sell more Windows 7 copies, but I could be wrong. Either way, the proper installer is still too hard to track down.

So how's the job done? You need to download what Microsoft calls a "Platform Update", which includes a variety of updates, not only DirectX 11. Looking at the page for the download, you'll notice mention of "Windows Graphics", and further mention of DirectX 11. You have two options here. You could either download the entire Platform Update, or single out the DirectX 11 update. I can't recommend either or, but I personally chose the former just because I like keeping things up to date as much as possible.

For those of you interested exclusively in DirectX 11, you can download the update here. For the rest of you, it appears that the Platform Update is now available through Windows Update, although it wasn't a few weeks ago when I took care of it. If it's not in your Windows Update for whatever reason, then the easiest thing to do would be to just grab the single DirectX 11 (and others if you want them) download, as Microsoft doesn't seem to be offering the full-blown Platform Update as a single executable anymore.

There's little reason to fuss over DirectX 11 at current time, but if you have an ATI 5000 series card, the update won't hurt. Dirt 2 is the first game queued up for launch to take full advantage of it, and if you want to give a good benchmark a go, you could always play around with the Unigine "Heaven" benchmark, which we talked about a few weeks ago.

The Windows Graphics, Imaging, and XPS Library enables developers to take advantage of the advancements in modern graphics technologies for gaming, multimedia, imaging, and printing applications. The new features include: * Updates to DirectX to support hardware acceleration for 2D, 3D, and text-based scenarios * DirectCompute for hardware-accelerated parallel computing scenarios * XPS Library for document printing scenarios

Lucid Hydra Performance is Promising

If there's one product that both AMD and NVIDIA would share an opinion on, it's Lucid's Hydra. This is a chip that's set out to essentially replace CrossFireX and SLI, if all goes according to plan. Rather than handle multiple GPUs with alternate-frame rendering, Lucid's Hydra shares the load in a way that the company won't  reveal - probably for good reason. The question, of course, is whether  the company's technology is worthy of belonging in any of our machines. Is it?

Well, it's far too early to answer that, of course, as the product isn't officially released, but our friends at The Tech Report have taken a trip down to Lucid's HQs to give the product a test in its lab. Benchmarking this way is never ideal, for obvious reasons, but it's better than nothing. After his exhaustive look within the time constraints, Scott was left impressed in some regards, but not entirely wowed in others. There's more work to be done before the product's final launch, it goes without saying.

In its current form, the scaling works well in some cases, but not well in others. For example, in F.E.A.R. 2, a single HD 4890 card proved faster than an HD 4890 + HD 4770, which makes no sense, as more power should equal more performance. This could be due to improper load balancing between a fast and slower card, but I'm hoping to see Lucid iron out this particular issue before the first iteration gets released. Not all combos suffer like this, however, as a GTX 260 + HD 4890 combination hit almost 25% more performance over a single GTX 260 (but it should be more like 50% at least).

Despite the issues, this technology has a ton of potential, and it's rather incredible to see what this small company has pulled off thus far. It's already received a bit of funding, and even Intel seems to be backing it, so with a little more time, and perhaps a little more money, Lucid could become a real competitor to CrossFireX and SLI. And who knows... it may even render those useless. For the time-being, though, and based off of the initial performance, neither AMD or NVIDIA has much to stress over.

To execute Lucid's load-balancing algorithms, the Hyrda chip also includes a 300MHz RISC core based on the Tensilica Diamond architecture, complete with 64K of instruction memory and 32K of data memory, both on-chip. The chip itself is manufactured by TSMC on a 65-nm fabrication process, and Lucid rates its power draw (presumably peak) at a relatively modest 6W.

Tech Roundup - November 13, 2009

Motherboards & Processors
• ASUS P7P55D Deluxe - t-break
• ECS P55H-A - Motherboards.org

Displays & Video Cards
• ASUS EAH5870 1GB - Vortez Hardware
• ATI Radeon HD 5850 & HD 5870 Overclocking - Hardware Overclock
• Galaxy GeForce GTX 260+ Razor Edition - PC Perspective
• Leadtek Geforce GT 220 Extreme Overclocking - Madshrimps

Memory & Storage
• Kingston HyperX T1 4GB DDR3-2133 - PureOverclock
• Kingston SSDNow V 40GB Boot Drive SSD - Benchmark Reviews
• Testing Out Linux File-Systems On A USB Flash Drive - Phoronix
• Verbatim Store n Go Micro 4GB Flash Drive - OCModShop

Peripherals & Gadgets
• CM STORM Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse - Overclockers HQ
• Insignia NS-BRDVD3 Networked Blu-ray Player - i4u
• Thermaltake Toughpower Ultra Slim 65W Univeral Laptop AC Adapter - Overclockers Club
• TrickleStar TV TrickleSaver - Bona Fide Reviews

Cooling
• Coolink Chillaramic Thermal Compound - Hi Tech Legion
• CoGage True Spirit CPU Cooler - LanOC
• Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme - Overclockers Club

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black Edition Chassis - Hardware Canucks
• NZXT Beta EVO Mid-Tower Chassis - Overclockers Online
• NZXT M59 Chassis - Neoseeker
• SilverStone Raven RV02 Chassis - PureOverclock
• Ultra X4 850W Power Supply - BCCHardware

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• TomTom XXL 540S GPS - TechReviewSource