Crap. I need a new video card

[Knightmare]

BIOSHOCK.
On sale at Target, $24.99. Half price for what most gaming sites, magazines and players are calling one of the best games of all time.

I was overjoyed to see it half off. "Wonderful," I thought. "I think I will buy it. Then play it all day long."

I did read the minimum system requirements, and the suggested requirements. My machine should be able to play it.

Got it home, installed it, and it sat with eager anticipation.

Hmm... where is my mouse pointer? Not on screen. But it still looks good!
So I find my way into the options screen, lower the resolution and all that, and restart the game.

Now it's all choppy, with little pyramids all over the place. It seems that my card can't handle BIOSHOCK. And I know it won't handle Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, Quake Wars or Unreal Tournament.

So now I am stuck with a game I can't play, unless I buy a new video card. And who has money for that?

Anyone have any ideas?

[lordlundar]

An Nvidia 8600GT.

Seriously, if you can't play the newest titles, then anything coming down the road isn't any better.

On the game side, my personal faves that might run on your machine. (vague guess at best.)

Shooter: UT 1999 or 2004. Both are still very good, despite being several years out of date.

RPG: KotoR or Neverwinter Knights. Bioware is the best developer right now and with good reason. These came out before the buyout so it is unaffected by EA.

RTS: Warhammer 40k series. I would say Supreme commander, but it's pretty demanding on a system. WH40K is my next fave.

Adventure: Sam and Max Season one and the current ones for season two. Pure fun and silliness.

Hope that helps.

[BOOYAH]

The NVIDIA 8600 GT is a great card use it myself. For a constrained budget try the NVIDIA 7600 GS, decent and they run cheap at CC and will run current games including COD4. For COD4 not only a decent card is necessary but it is a memory pig so upgrade the RAM while you're at it, couple of 1G sticks aren't too expensive anymore.

[Knightmare]

Thanks everyone.

I have puh-lenty of RAM. More couldn't hurt.

[Shabo]

I am so going to Target on my lunch break...

[PCGameGuy]

AGP or PCIe?

Is it AGP or PCIe? I love the 8800GT for PCIe, it's mid-range price (200-300), DX 10, and runs new stuff well. For AGP you have to dig, but I loved my 7600 GS card. DX 9 only, but I ran Bioshock on it and it flowed nicely.

[JustADude]

Is it AGP or PCIe? I love the 8800GT for PCIe, it's mid-range price (200-300), DX 10, and runs new stuff well. For AGP you have to dig, but I loved my 7600 GS card. DX 9 only, but I ran Bioshock on it and it flowed nicely.

Best card ever for AGP (safe to say, since it's a dead standard now ) is the GeForce 7800 series. They made AGP and PCIe version of that line, except for like the Ultra, IIRC. I use a 7800 GS and it can play BioShock just fine, and even games like Crysis if I turn off a lot of the pretties.

Anything past that, and you'll have to go for a PCIe build, which is pretty much starting over from the ground up. Good fun, but 5/5 on the $$$$$ scale.

[symposes]

i got the Radeon X1950 for around 200 bucks i think, maybe less... its DX9, but its PCI-E
it was part of an upgrade that converted my system from AGP to PCI-E (not exactly a forced upgrade, but my system prior was REALLY old... athlon xp 2200, agp... etc etc.. I couldnt get replacement parts without going through ebay.)

Thankfully the price on DX9 cards came way down when the DX10 cards started to become available...