According to wikipedia the new additions to the DirectX 10 API were
Quote:
The DirectX 10 SDK became available in February 2007.[9]
New features:
1)Fixed pipelines[10] are being done away with in favor of fully programmable pipelines (often referred to as unified pipeline architecture), which can be programmed to emulate the same.
2)New state object to enable (mostly) the CPU to change states efficiently.
3)Shader model 4.0 enhances the programmability of the graphics pipeline. It adds instructions for integer and bitwise calculations.
4)Geometry shaders, which work on adjacent triangles which form a mesh.
5)Texture arrays enable swapping of textures in GPU without CPU intervention.
6)Predicated Rendering allows drawing calls to be ignored based on some other conditions. This enables rapid occlusion culling, which prevents objects from being rendered if it is not visible or too far to be visible.
7)Instancing 2.0 support, allowing multiple instances of similar meshes, such as armies, or grass or trees, to be rendered in a single draw call, reducing the processing time needed for multiple similar objects to that of a single one.[11]
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Number 1 allows the programmers to custom build effects
Number 5 reduces the workload on the CPU when swapping textures
Number 7 would be used for representing 3d trees and grass and such.
The rest are basicaly effect the efficiency on the graphics processing.
To reproduce these functions in DX9 the CPU would be taking on a lot more load. Sort of makes sense when people talk about lower frame rates under ROF.
Cheers!