Detect HWA support

[Hernan]

What’s a good way to detect if a user’s computer supports HWA? I have a few users whose games run slow, apparently they’re running the game on an old computer. My game has the display settings which users can change. I’d like to remove the Direct3D9 setting if the computer can’t handle it.

2nd question: In case there is no way to do it,if this kind of thing would always work:
Hiding a warning message with a shader?

[Yves]

Maybe use the PixelShaderVersion expression? If its <= 100 then it's probably an old machine (change 100 to 0 or 200 according to your application).

[Bruto]

Yves I think you told me once that we can retrieve with a numer from Storyboard controls/ Screen/Display. I don't remember exactly but it returned a number that tells if it is running software mode or which DX version.

[Hernan]

Aha, I haven't seen these expressions before. Thanks!

[Atom]

Nice, i did not know about this either. Would i be correct in guessing you just divide that value by 100 so if it's 200 they have pixel shader 2.0 etc?

Maybe for a update it could find which Direct3D/X version someone is using and maybe the graphics card and gpu use also. These would be quite useful because you could make a setup app where users could test if the effects will work correctly etc. I think all of that info can be found with extensions but it would be nice to have it as default options.

[Yves]

Yes, you're correct. HWA documentation :

Storyboard object / New Display Mode expression : returns 1 (standard graphic mode), 2 (DirectDraw), 4 (Direct3D8) or 8 (Direct3D9).

Storyboard object / New Pixel Shader Version expression : returns the maximum version of the pixel shaders supported by the video card. Returns major version * 100 + minor version, for example 104 if the video card supports shaders 1.4.