New Hardware for Vista SP1 (DirectX 10.1) - XP SP3 Too?

Microsoft is currently in the final stages of cooking both Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3. In December 2007, the first public builds of Vista SP1 and XP SP3, namely the Release Candidates became available for download.

In the second week in January, the Redmond company dropped a refresh for Vista SP1 RC1, namely Build 17128. As of now, there is no word yet if Microsoft plans to issue a Refresh for XP SP3. Either way, having reached the Release Candidate stage, the two service packs are in near final form, and the inherent issues that the upcoming deployment scenario catalyzes is whether Vista SP1 and XP SP3 will require

new hardware.
Well, Windows XP SP3
brings almost nothing new to the table. The service pack does not even
contain Internet Explorer 7, and Vista's DirectX 10 is completely out
of the question. XP SP3 will run fine on top of the same hardware
configurations as XP SP2, and users needn't concern themselves with
upgrades for the implementation of the service pack. XP does contain
some Vista features including "Black Hole" Router Detection, Network
Access Protection (NAP), enhanced security for Administrator and
Service policy entries, Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module and
an overhauled Windows Product Activation, but none of them will impact
hardware requirements in the least.



With Windows Vista the issue is not so simple. Theoretically, SP1 is
nothing more than a standard service pack that will only superficially
impact the architecture of Vista RTM. As such, SP1 will integrate
seamlessly with the hardware infrastructure used to run the original
Vista bits. An upgrade is by no means required. But at the same time,
in order to enjoy the added features of Vista SP1, some users will have
to buy new video cards. This is because Vista SP1 brings to the table a
superset of DirectX 10.



In mid August 2007, Sam Glassenberg, Lead Program Manager on the
Microsoft DirectX Team, revealed that DirectX 10.1 fully supports
DirectX 10 hardware. Version 10.1 will simply extend the hardware
functionality and the existing capabilities, Glassenberg explained.
DirectX 10.1 adds to the DirectX 10 feature set, extends the lifetime
of the application programming interface, and increasing the management
level of GPU’s shading and filtering, boosting antialiasing, comes with
an evolved shader model, and improvements in terms of the High Dynamic
Range.



So what will happen when users will deploy Vista SP1 on top of Vista
and go from DirectX 10 to DirectX 10.1? Well, absolutely nothing. All
the features will still be there, all the games will still play, and
the video card will continue to be supported. At the same time,
hardcore gamers that just last year upgraded to a DirectX 10 ready
video card will have to make the jump again to hardware tailored to
version 10.1, as older video cards will not support the new graphics
features of DirectX 10.1 in Vista SP1.