I found a way to taste DirectX 11 on Vista *SPOILER!*

[Naraku_Diabolos]

Soleron said:

Untamoi said:

...

I have read from many places that DirectX 11 should add some features and improve performance of even current DirectX 10 cards. Newer cards benefit more from new features but it doesn't mean older cards can't benefit some too. At least MS have said that they have improved multicore CPU usage (yes, CPU not GPU) with DirectX 11 which might explain better results in many cases. After all DirectX is overall gaming API, it's not just about GPU.

That was said about DX10.1 but the only cards that got performance improvements were AMD's actual DX10.1 cards. Nvidia, who doesn't have any retail DX10.1 cards did not recieve a performance boost in games that were patched for it (e.g. Assassins' Creed was patched to remove DX10.1, which decreased AMD performance).

My second laptop, which got destroyed in a car wreck I was in last year (screen was shattered and the backside got cracked open; had it in my bookbag in the front seat of the car) had an NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS, but strangely HAD DirectX 10.1 after getting SP1 for Vista.