Can anyone point me to a definitive article about installing directx 9.0c on Windows 8 or 8.1? I have found many conflicting posts about this which claim that it is/is not required to run directx 9 and older games, it can/cannot be installed on Windows 8, all directx versions are backwards compatible, directx 10 and 11 are not compatible with directx 9.
After some research I believe the following points are correct:-
Directx 9.0c can be installed on Windows 8/8.1 (I successfully installed directx_jun2010_redist on win8).
Installing directx 9 on windows 8 does not affect directx 10 or 11 support.
Directx 9.0c is required to run any game that doesn’t support directx 10 or 11.
Directx 9 is backwards compatible with older versions, directx 10 and 11 are not compatible with older versions.
I think the last statement is not completely correct. DirectX 11 is , for the most part, backwards compatible with 9. Some applications, mainly games, will require installation of certain DX9 files (but not all) because they are written to only use those specifically named files. Usually they will install the needed files during installation of the program. I game a lot and I did not have to fully install DX9 on either my Win7 or 8.1 machines. Not even for the games that were produced before DX9 even existed. The machine running 8.1 has a graphics card that only supports DX9 and I still did not have to install that full package. Therefore, even the 3rd statement is not entirely correct. It should say parts of DX9 are required to play games that do not support 10 or 11.