DirectX and ATI Upgrade question

[RodNichols5]

I have an AMD 1.4ghz machine, ATI AIW 7500, Win ME. I had to do a clean install of windows to get everything running to do video capture. I want to play an old game that I am just now getting around too. It is Dark Reign, I know it is old but I am behind the times, what can I say. Anyway it thinks that I need to install DirectX 3, but I am running DirectX 8 or thereabouts. If I let the install try to install DirectX 3, could that mess up DirectX 8 and my captures ? I know that DirectX is backwards compatible, and once you install it, you can't undo it, I just hate to mess up the ATI stuff just to play an old game. Does anybody have any advice ? I guess if it does mess up I could reinstall DirectX 8, right ? I do have an older computer I could use in the meantime, but I am wondering in the future if another install program wants to install an older version of DirectX than what I have, will this cause havoc ?

Thanks in advance !!!!

[indolikaa]

You should be able to install the game without worry. Tell the game not to install DirectX 3.

But, you might want to download and install DirectX 9.0b Runtime from Microsoft. It'll make you current, and should you ever decide to update your version of ATI MMC, you'll need it anyway.

[RodNichols5]

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately, the game will not play when I bypass the install DirectX. The DirectX is a seperate routine from the game install so I am wondering, will it be smart enough to recognize that there is a later version of DirectX and not overwrite any files ? If it did overwrite some files, could I just install the latest DirectX and fix it ?

Thanks !!

[tigerman8u]

i had a program that wanted to install Direct X ver. 8. i let it go thru the install process and my system kept DX 9.0b.