If I'm not mistaken, it means you have it installed, but your video card isn't capable of utilizing it's capabilities.

But they didn't have to make any hardware considerations at that time, it was simply developing ideas like storyline, developing thumbnail sketches of artwork etc. Things like that don't require you to think about what your system limitations might be.

That... makes about as much sense as pairing a 3.2 ghz quad-core processor with 512mbs of RAM.

You have DirectX 11 installed on your computer, everyone with Windows 7 or Vista does. The video card has to have hardware support for DirectX 11, which it doesn't.

It means that you have DirectX 11 installed, not that your video card is capable of making use of all the features it has to offer. Your video card is only DirectX 10 capable, it won't display all of the DirectX 11 features.



Your video chip was probably manufactured before DirectX 11 and Windows 7 was even developed. It makes perfect sense. The 4200 is a fairly old card right now. It's at the very bottom of the 4000 line, with a 5000 line after that.

Shouldn't DX10 capabilities still technically be better than DX9 capabitilies (or rather the version of OpenGL the PS3 utilizes)?

Unfortunately, they are right. Your graphics don't support DX11. However, I know of some of the older Radeons that supported DX10.1 (your card supports 10.1) had tessellation engines but not sure if yours does. But no, your card doesn't support DX11.

I've never tried with a ps3 myself, sorry. I have a 360 controller I bought on a whim to try out on some games, and for the most part it was painless. I barely use it, just for certain 3rd person games, IMO a mouse/keyboard is so much better. Just has a slight learning curve. Then again the controller tool a bit to get used to.

On topic: what I don't fully grasp is if they created this engine to run dx11, and plan on using it for a while, why not get a further head start and start working on dx11 features now. Work out all the kinks, and give pc gamers some love.

Certainly. But DirectX 10 wasn't really used all that much, Microsoft jumped to DirectX 11 rather quickly, before the industry could really do much with 10. You will gain some extra functionality from DirectX 11 but not all of it. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about it too much right now since DirectX 11 hasn't become an exclusive format yet. Most of the time it gets used, it's in a DX9/DX11 hybrid system, due to the consoles and all those people who still are using Windows XP, or who don't have a DirectX 11 capable video card yet.

You can use the PS3 controller on the PC, you have to download the drivers to allow it to work. I can find you a link, give me a sec.

Edit: Here you go http://dl.qj.net/download/ps3-dualshock-3-controller-drivers.html

Also, here is a tutorial you can use to install it. http://www.ehow.com/how_4809736_use-ps-controller-computer.html

Also cards that don't fully support dx11 still benefit from it. They can't run tessellation but benefit from it's(dx11) optimizations. I doubt you'd notice a difference at all, but it is there. If you read some old Articles from way back when they talk about this in further detail.

Actually no, Vista is DirectX 10 by default, though it will be able to run DirectX 11 if you download it. Windows XP can't run either one.

XP is old and is long past the time to phase it out. They stopped supporting my Windows 2000 Pro a long time ago.

I'm pretty sure windows update downloaded/installs it automatically. On my moms pc she had it installed on vista, and I never did that for her. She also doesn't play games/know how to install anything.

I must consult your advice in about a year when I am shopping for my own laptop (It's for college... or that's my excuse, anyway. ). I should be able to get a decent deal in a year's time, right?

Well that could be, but it doesn't come with it out of the box at any rate. Windows 7 does though.



I think it will be around for awhile yet, lots of people are still using it. It's still my principle OS, I have a dual boot system with both XP and Vista, but I use XP almost exclusively.

My advise to you is that the computer you want costs $2000 (the number varies) today. It'll cost $2000 tomorrow. It'll cost $2000 a year from now.

Yes, you can get a decent deal in a years time but a laptop will never be as good as a desktop. I personally suggest just building a PC, you can get far more power for the equivalent cost of a laptop.

Absolutely. Especially with AMD's Llano coming out. Integrated GPU so there's much less heat put off, and they showed it running FF14 Online on low-medium settings at 1280-700 resolution and it ran damn near flawlessly. We're still 2-3 years off for laptops that can run games as well as desktops in the same price range, but it's a start.

Bah. Moore's law will clean it up.

I don't think I want a $2000 laptop, however. I'm not looking for anything that's going to completely outshine a PS3, but between a possible part-time job and hopefully a bit of a graduation present, I just want to go for the best I can with what money I can scraqe together. My mom bought her PC a year and a half ago for $600 (It was on sale.) and it can run Gothic 3 on its max settings... albeit noticeably choppy, but still tolerable. It's down to $500, now. Surely it can't be that hard to top this PC, sometime in the middle of 2012, with, say, $700-$800?

Actually, we are indefinite years from laptops that can run games as well as desktops for the same price range. Also, NEVER buy a PC with integrated graphics for gaming, you might as well just break your own legs with a sledgehammer because that's what is going to happen once you find out the laptop can't play games for crap. Besides, running FF14 on low-medium settings at 1280-700 res is pretty weak.



Do you mean top your PC right now? Because I can build a PC that is better than your laptop right now for $700-800. I put up the hardware list several days ago where you can build a PC that will run any game to date and for a few years in the future on full settings and not lag. So if you can aim for $964, your set for November. In 2012, you that $964 PC will be down to more like $700

The point is, choose a price range and buy the best you can for that range. Do not pick parts and wait for their prices to go down. That only happens when something better comes out, meaning the part you wanted is then outdated.

@Sleign: My old laptop's NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT did the job well enough. Sure, I would have preferred a dedicated GPU, but it let me play any game I tried and did all the other stuff I needed it to do.

I agree, but for light-moderate gaming on the go, I think it's pretty damn nice, especially for the cost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mdPi4GPEI74

It's with a total system power draw of less than 50 W.

And FFXIV is a rather demanding game, too. The official minimum system requirements are a GeForce 9600 GT or a Radeon HD 2900 XT. The modern equivalents to those are perhaps a Radeon HD 5670 or GeForce GT 430, neither of which are exactly low end cards. Note that Intel's latest and greatest Sandy Bridge with Intel HD Graphics 3000 completely chokes on the same benchmark. So would the discrete cards that give that level of performance, such as a Radeon HD 5450 or 4350, or a GeForce G 210 or 9400 GT.

Coming soon: budget gaming laptops that will run virtually any game well enough to be playable at moderate settings, and without the heat problems that have traditionally been intrinsic to gaming laptops. This will also push low end computers into Wal-Mart that can run modern games, as opposed to things like Solitaire. Expect Llano to launch in about two months.

Now, the first genuinely nice gaming laptops, as opposed to merely relatively nice for a gaming laptop, still aren't due to launch until about 2013. But Llano is a huge step in that direction. With the arrival of Llano, the usual advice of "don't get a gaming laptop" won't be completely dead, but it will be much weaker than today.

Probably, computer prices have a tendency of falling on a regular basis as more powerful units become available. Which happens every 18 months, give or take, according to Moore's Law. If you buy a new laptop though, don't get one of those off-the-shelf models. You want to at least custom order your video card so you can make sure you're getting one that's actually capable of playing games. Most stock laptops can't really, they're just not designed for that purpose. So you need to keep an eye on what kinds of graphics capabilities it has.

I am actually going to college, so I do need a laptop. Plus, I can't put together anything, really. I'm bringing my PS3 and eventually getting a PS4 or some other next-generation console after they get a bit cheaper, following release. As such, I'm not looking for a computer to replace a console, just a decent laptop for the prices I'll be willing to pay. Consoles will always just be the more affordable thing, for me (over the course of the next decade of my life, at least... which will be spent racking up debt in a university), and, again, although I love technological progress, I really don't think I'm going to need much more than a next-generation console to sate my appetite, for a good while. They're going to be graphical monsters. If the failure rates for them are too high, I could very easily be tempted to just delve into PC gaming because I hate faulty hardware more than anything, but I'm of a rare breed. I like my consoles and my PCs. Then again, we'll just have to see where I am in the future, then. I need to buy a laptop for wherever I am going for schooling, however. After that, who knows?