I've never really been much into PC gaming so I don't have a really nice computer, but these days practically every cool PC game has system requirements that my comp can't meet, usually because of my lack of a graphics card. So I want to get a graphics card, but I don't really know anything about them, so my question to you, the Mcleodgaming Community is: What do you recommend?

Well from my personal knowledge, the 2 main graphics card manufacturers are Nvidia and ATI

ATI on a price standpoint is better IMO than Nvidia but towards the higher end standpoint, Nvidia's graphics cards are better.

A decent graphics card that I have had experience with is the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT

Here are some details about it

From what I know, this graphics card is now a bit outdated so you can get it at a good price, and also it can run crisis on high.

Another note to know it that when buying a graphics card, the higher the model number doesn't nessecarily mean the better. I'm not too sure about ATI but with Nvidia, you want to buy a graphics card that is higher than 500 in the series for something good.

Hope this helped

it did, thanks. One more thing. I bought the transformers 2 game for PC and it says I need "shaders model 3.0 or above". what does that mean?

Shouldn't this be in General Electronics?

not necessarily. graphics cards are used mainly for PC gaming. I think it could go either way.

That's just silly, it goes into general electronics.

k... well it'd be nice if I could get my question answered

EDIT: How do I know if a certain card is compatible with my machine?

Whoa now! Don't jump the gun! BEFORE you buy a graphics card, you have to know if you have enough juice to run it. Check your PSU. The graphics cards do eat up a sizeable chunk of your power supply so you best make sure you can power it. There is a fudge factor too but I wouldn't risk it. SECONDLY, be sure you can stick it on your mother board. Its all nice and dandy to have a cool video card that can make Crysis run at the highest settings and resolution but you just can't put it on your motherboard. FINALLY, be sure you can hook it up to your monitor. I found out the hard way that I needed digital cables for my 9600 and I had an analogue only monitor so I had to shell out an extra 6000 baht for a new monitor

Right once these three conditions are cleared, let me personally recommend the Nvidia 9600 GT. It is about on par with lowest 8800, probably a little less powerful, but it is more efficient. I can play Crisis on high with these with minimal frame rate drops.

I have a GTX 260, if you're willing to pay higher, then it's better than a 9600 GT.
Thai, you know you could've gotten an adapter...

Well I could, but I also needed an excuse to get a bigger monitor