Many of the graphical effects exclusive to Microsoft's Direct X10 API can be achieved outside of DirectX 10 "if you give it enough time and resources," Massive development VP Petter Sydow told VideoGamer.

Within the PC edition of its RTS World in Conflict, Massive made use of some Vista-only DX10 features for additional graphical polish.

Now that the company is helping Swordfish Studios to port the title to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3--neither of which support DirectX 10--Sydow says that at least some of those DX10 effects will appear in the console editions that are due out this fall.

"At this point we've managed to replicate some of the [DX10] effects, but I don't know what features will make it into the final release," he noted. "We'll keep on working on them and see what happens."

Sierra has released a new World in Conflict movie, offering four minutes of developer narrated footage focusing on the game's DirectX 10 support. You can grab the HD version from FileShack, or use the Flash player below.

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New at GameAlmighty.com this afternoon is a Q&A with Relic programmer Remy Saville, who is asked about the recent Company of Heroes update that added DirectX10 support to the game. In case you hadn't grabbed that patch yet, you can find it on FileShack.

Relic has issued a new Company of Heroes patch, updating version 1.6.1 of the critically acclaimed World War 2 strategy game to version 1.7.0. The 13mb update offers a number of gameplay tweaks and bug fixes, but the main attraction is DirectX 10 support for Windows Vista users. According to publisher THQ, DX10 support should result in improvements to model and map details, lighting, shadows, and overall image quality. Today's patch makes Company of Heroes the first retail game with DirectX 10 support.

Update: NVidia has released new 32-bit and 64-bit Vista beta drivers for the GeForce 8x00 range of videocards, which are required for new effects to show up.