DirectX 11 will work on Windows Vista, and will also be compatible with existing DirectX 10 hardware
The recent news that DirectX 11 would be revealed this month caused a bit of backlash from some owners of DirectX 10 GPUs, who felt that they’ve hardly had a chance to use their hardware yet. However, Microsoft has revealed that DirectX 11 will be compatible with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as future DirectX 11-specific parts.
At Microsoft’s Gamefest show, the CTO of Microsoft's Entertainment Business Division, Chris Satchell, revealed that ‘DX11 is totally compatible with DX10. There's not that 9/10 discontinuity we created before.’ This doesn’t mean that DirectX 10 hardware will only be running DirectX 10 features under DirectX 11, either. According to Shacknews, ‘Microsoft also disclosed that DirectX 11 will add features to existing DirectX 10-compatible hardware.’ After all, once you have a unified shader architecture, your GPU’s processors are no longer locked into the architecture of a specific API.
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