My First Video Card Purchase! Please Help!!

I am really new at PCs. I have been using macs for my whole life until this last week.

My friend (who didn't really know much about this new computer, but oh well) said it was a very powerful machine.

So today I went to Wal-Mart and bought Halo and I got a Star Wars game for me brother.

I tried playing Halo.... and nothing comes up. Just some basic polygons and an outline of a man when I start the game!

The game warns me that I am below the minimum hardware requirements. But on the back on the box, I'm not.

So I need a video card. I know where to buy some but I have NO IDEA what kind I need, how good, or how to install it?

Please! I need some help!

What are you running now? I finished playing Halo and gave it to my roommate to install on the vintage 20th century computer I setup and he got it running on that thing ...

The first thing is to determine what type of cards you can put in

4xAGP, 8xAGP or PCI Express

Then figure out how much you can afford get your range expanded atleast $25. E.g. $75-$100. Then search newegg for video cards in that price range that work with your system. You don't have to buy it from them, but they usually have a lot of user reviews and it's a convenient place to start looking. Then of course you can post back here if you have a few cards in mind for more advice and also, if you need advice on installation ... but they are easy to install.

If you don't know what kind you can take, do try to determine the make and model of your motherboard ... it's critical info.

t's a M7VIG 400 motherboard with a fancy case.

Here's what the manual says under "Slots"

Three 32-bit PCI bus master slots
One CNR Slot (Optional)
One AGP 4X Slot

I think it has a 32 meg card right now. Yes. Very poor. It runs XP (when compared to VPC) amazingly.

But I do need a better one. I know.

What do you guys recommend?

If you want to look go to http://www.alexwait.com

These days most AGP cards are 4x/8x but since you don't support 8x I wouldn't spend too much. Before you go any farther, if you really want to play Halo, make sure you have Direct-X updated. Then try again. Seriously, it's running here on a very old card. I think it's 32MB but it possibly might be 64 ... I'm too lazy to go investigate the matter. PCI-Express isn't going to work, it's not the same as the PCI you have by any stretch of the imagination so just rule that out.

Ok, I had to grab a beer anyway so I just looked, the machine I referred to is running a 64MB AGP 4x card with Halo running fine.

Look Here you have 200+ to choose from from $50 to $300. I have no recommendations in particular ... read the reviews on any that catch your eye.

I'm getting this one:

http://www.newegg.com/product/produ...N82E16814145067

More than what I need.

But for only 10 more dollars (after a rebate)

http://www.newegg.com/product/produ...N82E16814102484

I could get that one... Hmm..

Man! Shopping for PC parts sure is fun...

Of the two I think I would definitely select the sapphire.

The ultimate shopping for parts is building the whole box from the ground up. Then it is fun. You get to select everything. And you don't get the fun task of spending a day uninstalling all that "bonus software" they give you when you buy from a manufacturer (1099 free AOL hours, for example)

Speaking of, I bought a laptop from Dell. It came with built in wireless and I have a wi-fi network and I've enjoyed that feature on the road in hotels that have wi-fi. So what does Dell do. They call me at work one day. And when I said "you're calling me at work, what is this about?" Was it something important like a product recall? No ... they wanted to ask me if I've taken advantage of the free AOL offer that came with my laptop and if not, why not I told them, as politely as I could in an office enviroment, how to place their AOL offer where the sun doesn't shine.

That's the one to get - very reasonably priced I have to say.

My box.... all it had on it was Windows XP....

Whew. Good thing I avoided all that AOL crap.

One question:

Since I cannot currently get my PC hooked into the Internet, I cannot validate my copy of Windows XP to download DirectX.

How should I proceed?

Can't you download the setup file from the machine that you are connected to the net with now, to post here ? You can download it from Microsoft directly.

Or, you could always head down to your local shop/newsagent and pick up a good PC magazine that comes with a dvd, chances are that if it has demos on it then it will have the latest version of DirectX on it as it's really a necessity these days.