I have Windows 7 (64bit), do I still need the latest version of DX9.0c to play older games? I think some games won’t run fine without it.
Mine auto-installed DX9.0c when I installed my first game, which was… I think… I forget, but it auto installed it for me. And I just found out, while writing this post, that I has dx11. I didn’t even know that existed yet…
Well, Windows Vista introduced DX10, and Windows 7 introduced DX11 so you don’t have to install those. But I’m pretty sure that you still need to install DX9 for some older games.
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Alot of old (between 1 and 5 years, about) games will automatically install DX9.0c if you don’t have it. Even a new copy of FEAR will install it. Yeah, now I remember, FEAR installed my DX9.
EDIT: I think I missed the point of this thread. Yeah, I think you might need DX9 for older games, but I’m pretty sure that most of them will auto-install it for you.
IIRC Windows Vista/7 have the previous versions of DirectX installed already for the sake of compatibility.
Well, I’m gonna install the latest version of DX9.0c anyway, just to be safe 
Windows 7 includes some of the files required to run DX9 apps but it’s also missing some of the dll files for 9.0c so it is better to install the latest version of DX9, it doesn’t conflict with the dx10/dx11 files.