DirectX 9 card compatibility issues?

Your graphic card should support pixel shader 1.4 and vertex shader 1.1 (See Radeon 9200 series Specifications).
So try installing the latest driver available on http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html (not the one on your CD)

If you need shader model 2 or higher you can use the Reference Rasterizer that will make Direct3D render everything on the CPU (It will run slow... but it should work).

Shader Model 2.0 (VS2 and PS2) introduces quite a bit of new features, which are not really available in SM1.

Frankly, I think that most techniques meant for SM2 won't run on an SM1 at all, and even if they do, it'd require quite a bit of optimization and modification. I don't think this would be the best way to learn shaders -- when you need to modify the techniques you're learning to conform to stricter requirements.

Most important IMO is the global limit on a shader's length in SM1, which is quite lower than in SM2. This will pose a big problem trying to convert the more complex techniques to lower shader models.

All is not lost, however. For Vertex Shaders, there's always Software Vertex Processing. This sounds like it'll be slow, and granted, it really isn't fast, but it's more than usable. Since you plan on just learning, even if it runs at low-framerates, it should hopefully still qualify as interactive :).

As for Pixel Shaders, you could always attempt to use 1.4 instead of 2.0, and use Software Vertex Shaders to perform vertex processing. If you can do that, you should be able to run the techniques at a reasonable speed.

If you can't get the PS to compile as SM1.4, you can still use the RefRast. This is painfully slow, however supports nearly all features and techniques available in DX9. This is perfect for learning new stuff, but annoyingly slow.

If you plan on using RefRast, I highly recommend using a very small window (100x100) when possible -- at least it'll run at more than 1fps.

Hope this helps.

Thank you to both posters. You guys were a huge help. I guess I'll have to settle for really slow performance.

You can also try using SwiftShader in place of standard Direct3D implementations it is said to be 50 times faster than Microsoft's Direct3D Reference Rasterizer but currently it supports only Vertex Shader 1.1 and Pixel Shader 1.4 but you can read in the FAQ that both Pixel and Vertex Shader 2.0-level support are under development.
I have not used this program and I do not know how active the project is but if they implement shader model 2, much faster than the Reference Rasterizer, it could be the right tool for you.

Awesome. Thanks for the link.

If you can somehow sell your 9250 and get a GeForce FX5200, you'll be glad you did. The 5200 is a DirectX 9 generation card and supports PS and VS 2.0 in hardware. They're very cheap ($50):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1069609642+106790727&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=