Vertex Shader

[BeeCeeBee]

Ok it is time to display the limits to my knowledge. I just finished a reply to a thread started by a member concerning a graphics card upgrade.

 

http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/graphics-cards/6260-graphics-cards-new-post.html

 

That got me to thinking and from thinking I went to Google. Some time ago I purchased a game that required vertex shading. I could not run it on my Toshiba Equium M40X-189. (Mobile intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Family Chipset) and have simply considered myself out of luck because it does not support vertex shading at all.

 

Research indicates that the chipset (onboard graphics) should support vertex shader 2.0. I assume that came sometime after mine was built and drivers added. My question is: Am I still out of luck or is it just a matter of drivers and/or an upgrade from directx 9 to 10.

Graphics - Pixel shader and vertex shader support

 

Not being a gamer I have no familarity with these concepts and do not even know if vertex shading is a hardware or software issue although I did note that the intel site had the following footnote:

1 Intel provides an optimized graphics pipeline for shader processing that is included in Microsoft DirectX*. This can be used by games to provide software (SW) shader processing.

So what am I missing folks?

Edited March 26, 2009 by BeeCeeBee

[Dalo Harkin]

both, your hadware has to support the shaders, but you also need the latest direct X

[BeeCeeBee]

The directx that I have was the latest at the time that the game was published. Graphics card was known not to support vertex shading but the Intel link above says it does or can. I doubt that Intel redesigned the chipset and kept the same model designation.

 

What I do not know is whether vertex shading can somehow be accomodated simply by updating drivers or a combination of updating drivers and directx? OR am I reading the information on the link incorrectly?

[BeeCeeBee]

I think I have found the answer but not a solution. Directx 10 can emulate shading in software where the hardware does not otherwise support it. (I think I got that right.) HOWEVER, (and it is a big however) it seems that you are out of luck if, like me, you use XP. It appears that directX 10 is available only for Vista. Of course, if I upgraded my laptop I would already have a card that would support shading and would not need it to do that.

 

I am interested if anyone has heard otherwise but if Microsoft does not make it compatible with XP I would be dubious of anyone who says they have a work around. They are always out there somewhere.

Edited March 27, 2009 by BeeCeeBee

[Dalo Harkin]

There is a patch knocking around (official before anyone asks) that will allow you to run DX10 on XP a quick search for DX10 on XP on google may prove useful :)