[neokn3]

Well, from being a PC gamer for at least 10 years, I can tell u dat DirectX updates usually didnt really do that much if u kept ur old card cause the new technologies had to be emulated (simulated) on the old hardware. Like I didnt have a card that fully supported DirectX 9 at least 2 years after the first version 9a came out, so it didnt really change that much or it was a bit slower.

DirectX essentially is a just a huge resource/library for programmers and game developer use to make effects and even the graphics rendering itself. The biggest catch is the graphics card though. You might buy the a card from the latest series (ex. 8 series for nVidia) which will have the hardware compatibility wit DX10 but if u get like a lower price range card like the 8200 (I think there might be one like that), it will be like playing with a two year old card (in terms of performance) with some flashy new effects. What this might mean is that u would play at really low resolutions to just keep the framerate up but u would still get the flashy graphics.

I hope I wasnt too confusing