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In fact, Microsoft has been using DirectX 10 as both a leverage and an incentive in order to catalyze a forced migration from Windows XP to Windows Vista of the Windows community. Estimated at 200 million, the gamers using Windows as their main gaming platform have only one choice if they want the enjoy the added benefits of DirectX 10 – upgrade to Vista. And Microsoft revealed that in excess of 10 million gamers actually switched to the operating system since January 2007, as the Redmond company remained firm on positions, and refused to backport the graphics technology to XP.

"DirectX 10 will provide an incredibly detailed experience for gamers of every type, and will enable game creators to increase a game's level of realism, enhancing details and complexity in gaming worlds, apply effects like dynamic lighting and weather, and much more," Microsoft explained. "While Windows Vista is fully compatible with games and hardware that use older versions of DirectX, the new DirectX 10 features are available with a DirectX 10 compatible graphics card and games designed to take advantage of this new technology. Adding a DirectX 10 card to a PC running Windows Vista is like turbocharging your gaming experience."

And just to be clear on the matter, the screenshot at the bottom of this article is Microsoft's very own DirectX 10 vs. DirectX 9.0b comparison. That's right. Two pictures. Just two pictures. One with Crysis in Vista and DirectX 10 and the other in Halo 2, under XP and in DirectX 9.0b. And that's it. I mean why try harder? Personally, I would have expected a complete benchmarking from Microsoft throwing DirectX 10 and DirectX 9.0b one against each other. But hey. Two pictures are just as good! If not even better! Well, you have to be familiar with the expression a picture is worth a thousand words. Microsoft knows the value of two of its images... Otherwise, they wouldn't have invited users to see that "DirectX10 offers a wide variety of benefits to gamers, [and to] dive into the details."

"You can see the difference for yourself when we compare Picture 2, a screenshot taken from 'Halo: Combat evolved', a PC game which was among the best of its class at release to Picture 1, an image from 'Crysis', a PC game which is slated to release soon. Halo uses DirectX9.0b to support its graphics while Crysis makes use of DirectX10. DX10 adds a new level of realism to games by making characters more life-like. You can see the incredible detail in the screenshot above. The facial expressions, details of the face, the handle-bar moustache and the glazed looking eyes all add to the realism," Microsoft revealed.