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DirectX 10 What it holds for gaming       Well DirectX 10 will bring many things to not only video games, but to the entire Windows Vista operating system. Unfortunately not everything about this new shader is positive. We will be able to play games with better graphics that developers can make easier due to standards, added power, and new features. But for the first time DirectX is not backwards compatible meaning that you will need to upgrade your video card in order to take advantages of this new shader.       What are the improvements? Well the vertex and pixel shaders will not be under one name called Geometry Shader. "The traditional vertex shader takes in a single vertex, a single point, and it has to output a single vertex. It's impossible for the vertex shader to create or destroy triangles because it always has to output a vertex for each one it takes in. The geometry shader lets the game operate on entire geometry primitives, lines, triangles, and points as well as neighboring adjacent primitives. The geometry shader can also create new primitives, add new triangles, before sending them further down the pipe to the rasterizer and pixel shader. Even better, the geometry shader can also output results directly into memory, allowing data to go right back into the graphics pipeline without going out to the CPU for setup. The changes will let the GPU accelerate particle effects like smoke and explosions, which are usually done on the CPU. Games can also use the geometry shader in combination with texture arrays to accelerate effects like cube mapping. Games use cube maps to make an object reflect the world around it. To make an object like a stainless steel teapot reflect its surroundings, you have to determine the teapot's surroundings and map it onto the teapot. Normally, this can take six passes, but a game can use the geometry shader and a render target array to create a cube map in one pass."       Another way that this will help gaming is speed. By dropping the backwards compatibility, they are able to create new Dynamic Link Libraries(DLL) from the ground up greatly increasing speeds. With new standards for being able to put "DirectX 10 Compatible" onto video cards. This helps developers know what they can develop for. Before with DirectX 9 and earlier, video card makers only had to have so many features of DirectX in order to say the are DirectX compatible. Now it will be stricter rules allowing for game developers to raise the bar of their games.       But as I mentioned, it is not all good news. With DirectX 10 not being backwards compatible, that means you must buy a new video card. No video card out there right now (as of 4/6/2006) is DirectX 10 ready. So does this mean that if you have a video card now that you can't use Vista?       Well not exactly. You will be able to use your video cards that you own now. If you have a pretty decent video card you will be able to use Aero, the 3D stuff. Vista will have support for DirectX 9 with some improved binaries in the DLL's so do not worry about being able to play games. So in short, if you are looking to upgrade, hold off. But don't feel like you need to upgrade right away when they release DirectX 10 video cards unless you just have to have the best of the best.