New Graphics Card for DX11

[Aysedasi]

I've extracted my post from the Project C.A.R.S thread in the hope of receiving advice.


To run Assetto Corsa (and presumably Project C.A.R.S in due course), I need DX11. I run Windows 7 so I have it already, but my current graphics card, a GeForce 9600GT 512Mb will only support DX9/10 (and 10.1 for AC with a tweak to the ini). So I'm thinking of upgrading.

I don't know much about these things, but if I go for a GTX 660, are there different fittings? My current card is in what I always used to know (I think) as an AGP (?) slot and has a PCI-E (which I assume to be PCI-Express) connector, so what do I need to look out for?

[thetool]

What's the rest of the spec? After a certain age you'd be just as well building a new machine that upgrading single parts.

[Aysedasi]

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 2.40Ghz 6Gb RAM.

No way though that I'm buying or building another machine now at 57 years old to run a sim...... AC runs pretty well on this, although if I have more than 10-11 opponents out there it gets a little choppy!

[Stahler]

Assetto Corsa needs DirectX 10.1 – so you need a DirectX 10.1 compatible graphics card and Windows Vista at least. (There is no DX10.1 in Win XP – at least not officially (AFAIK, it can be 'hacked').)

But...
Project CARS needs only DirectX 9 – so it even runs on Windows XP.

So you're OK in this respect but your graphics card is probably a bit slow for Project CARS, although I think it will run it. On the other hand GTX 660 is maybe too powerful for your CPU – it could be 'bottlenecked' by it, but I am not sure about this. (you could overclock your CPU, AFAIK Q6600 is capable of clocks about 4GHz – but this is rather for advanced users)

AGP is an older slot and I'm almost 100% sure you have PCI-Express (PCI-E). There are several versions of PCI-E but all of them are backward compatible, so you'll be OK.

BTW There is no REALLY SIGNIFICANT difference between DX9, 10 or 11. The different look of AC and pCARS is down to their engines, not because of different DirectX versions. pCARS looks great, but I think AC in some areas looks just as good.

[Aysedasi]

Assetto Corsa actually needs DX11 to run properly, otherwise you get cardboard cut-out trees! It won't run with 9 or 10, but will with 10.1, if you make an amendment to the appropriate .ini file. I'm running Win7, so have DX11 already available (if my card could use it). It's just a shame that AC couldn't have been engineered for DX9.......

[thetool]

Direct X9 is TWELVE years old. You don't get many people complaining they don't release new VHS anymore!

[Aysedasi]

I guess so - but on searching around the internet to try and find a solution, it's become very clear that there are a LOT of people other than me who still have cards that don't support DX10 and particularly DX11. This is the first time I've been faced with having to upgrade a graphics card in order to run a sim since I bought a Voodoo card for my Celeron goodness knows how many years ago just to be able to run GPL......

Oh, and thanks for the advice - much appreciated.