If you want to know the capabilities available in your graphics card you can use a tool in the DirectX SDK\Utilities\Bin\x86.
This tool is called “DXCapsViewer.exe”.
Here a screenshot with the capabilities of my NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT:
You can download the latest DirectX SDK at the following link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/directx/aa937788.aspx