Q: I have just tried to install Daz Studio 3, and it says I need Open GL 1.3 (my machine only has Open GL 1.2). I have also tried to install Cakewalk Plasma Express. It says I need Direct X 8.1 (specifically, I gave got 8 and 9). Could you tell me if these updates would do any harm to my machine?
A: OpenGL is a feature of your graphics card rather than a piece of software. It hides the complexities of different graphics chips from the programmer by presenting a uniform interface. What this means in practice is that a piece of software can be written so that it will work on multiple hardware platforms. If your graphics processor doesn’t support OpenGL 1.3 then there’s nothing you can do about it short of a hardware upgrade.
If you have DirectX 9 then as a general rule you shouldn’t need 8.1 as the newer version is backwards compatible with the earlier code. You’ll find version 9 in the Drivers folder of PCU cover discs. However, there’s a bug in the Cakewalk installer that means it won’t run with DX 9 installed. You can work around this with a registry edit as follows. Run regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\DirectX. Now right-click on the Version entry in the right-hand Window, choose Modify. Make a note of the original value (probably 4.09.00.0900) then change the Value Data to 4.08.01.0810 click OK and close the registry. You should now be able to install Cakewalk. In order to change Windows back to DX 9 afterwards, go through the same steps and put Value back to the original number you noted.
You can fool the system into thinking it has an earlier DirectX version with a simple registry edit
Originally featured in PCU124