NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 is already here, Vista hits today, and the first DirectX 10 games aren't far away. Bit-Tech take an in-depth look at what DX10 adds to the gaming and graphical experience, from geometry shaders to resources to render targets. Here's a taster:

All of the developers we have spoken to about DirectX 10 have greeted it with open arms. Many of those developers are working towards either porting an existing game to DirectX 10 or are in the process of creating a new game using the new API and acknowledge that the lower overheads associated with many heavily used functions will allow them to create scenes with more visual complexity and richness. Both AMD's and NVIDIA's developer relations teams are working with games developers to ensure that they have the necessary tools to make efficient use of DirectX 10's capabilities.

However, one of DirectX 10's benefits for game developers turns out to be a problem for end users. With DirectX 10 only being available under Windows Vista, gamers will have to not only purchase a DirectX 10 capable video card, but also upgrade their operating system too. In the past, gamers have only needed to buy new hardware to experience the new features and benefits bought to the table in a DirectX update.

Given what we've seen from the likes of Crysis on its DirectX 9 code path, we're confident that DirectX 9 will continue to progress until the developer's audiences start to really migrate to DirectX 10 hardware and Windows Vista. However, Crytek has already told us that Crysis will ship with effects that are exclusive to DirectX 10, and that it plans to implement more advanced effects through patches.

I think most gamers are hoping that Crysis will live up to the hype, but Crysis isn't the only game being developed for DirectX 10. Other games that have been confirmed for DirectX 10 include Age of Conan, Company of Heroes, Hellgate: London, Microsoft's Flight Simulator X, Supreme Commander and all games based on Unreal Engine 3, including the eagerly anticipated Unreal Tournament 2007.