As technology moves ever onward, getting more and more complex, it becomes more and more important to know what you have and what it can do. In this case I am talking about graphics cards and figuring out what Shader Model it supports. I am seeing more and more games that have not only memory and processor requirements listed, but also things like what Shader Model and DirectX version your hardware supports.
I ran into this recently and although the DirectX version is easy enough to find out, the Shader Model was a bit tougher. So, after working through the problem and gathering some information from around the ‘net, I have put together some instructions and a handy reference chart for you that should make figuring this out a bit easier.
First off, we need to determine the version of DirectX that you are running. Not only because you might need to know it anyway, but also because that DirectX version number is what we will use to determine which Shader Model your rig can support.
If you don’t know already, you can get your DirectX information easily using the dxdiag tool. Click on Start=>Run (or maybe hit the Windows Key and R) to open the Run dialog and then type the word dxdiag in the box. When you click on the OK button, the program will start up.
When dxdiag starts up, the first thing you’ll see is information about your system, coincidentally enough on the System tab if it is not there already. There’s a box in the middle bottom two thirds of the screen with a list of info in the center. The item listed last should say “DirectX Version” and then have the version you are running beside it (see the screen shot below).
Now that you have your DirectX version information you can tuck that nugget away for whenever you need it later, and you can use the chart below to figure out which Shader Model your rig supports by matching up that very same DirectX version. Check it out …
- DirectX 8.0 – Shader Model 1.0 & 1.1
- DirectX 8.0a – Shader Model 1.3
- DirectX 8.1 – Shader Model 1.4
- DirectX 9.0 – Shader Model 2.0
- DirectX 9.0a – Shader Model 2.0a
- DirectX 9.0b – Shader Model 2.0b
- DirectX 9.0c – Shader Model 3.0
- DirectX 10.0 – Shader Model 4.0
- DirectX 10.1 – Shader Model 4.1
- DirectX 11.0 – Shader Model 5.0
A couple things to note here, DirectX 10.0 and higher will not run on Windows XP. DirectX versions prior to DirectX 8.0 do not support shader models. Last but not least, before installing a newer version of DirectX, it is good to verify that your graphics card supports that new version. Hopefully this info will help you identify what you have versus what you need and let you get your game on. Enjoy!
can you help theres this game called league of legends and before it worked fine but recently its been saying to make sure that my graphics driver can run shader model 2.0 which it can cause like i said it hasn’t had this problem before and my directX version is 10 so i was wandering if you could tell me what you think i should do
Have there been any updates to the game recently that might have changed things? Maybe check to see if there are updated video drivers you could install. If you already have the latest drivers, I have had to actually go back to an older version before. Basically, the first thing to think about is “What changed?” and look at any of those changes to see if one of them could have caused your problem. Good luck!
OMG thank you. I have been looking for this for a long time THANKS.