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Are there any suggested Graphics/Video cards I should get? Clearly my PC is old and isn't that great so top of the line would be pointless to get right now, until I get a new one. Just looking for a quick, cheap Video/Graphic card.

Also what type of slot is that for future reference? lol

Looks like they're PCI slots. Not the modern PCI-e ones that graphics cards use though - when it comes to graphics cards, yours stopped being the standard about 10 years ago (then it became AGP, then it becasue PCI-e...)

You can probably still get PCI graphics cards if you look hard enough, but off the lop of my head I think the best ones made were Radeon 9250 and the Geforce 5200, both of which where pretty unspectacular when they were released 5 years back. Don't expect much in the way of gaming performance - even for older games.

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10 years sounds like an reasonable age for this computer. Although I think, in 1999 I already had an RivaTNT for AGP 2x. So the age of PCI for graphic cards was over already.

My advice is to not invest in this computer anymore. The graphic cards still available for PCI a rare, therefore compareable expensive and not for gaming. Save the money for a completely new PC.

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Everyone should boycott Ubisoft and their new Online DRM for PC games. This has gone too far in the reduction of the rights of users and I am sick of it! It is not made to fight piracy, but to control the customer.

If you want a reference based on gaming, the best PCI graphics cards would make the original Far Cry from early 2004 quite playable, providing you played it on minimum settings and kept the resolution at about 800x600.

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Thanks. I've been really itching to play Black And White lately, but this computer can't run it. It can run WoW just fine, when I use to play it.

I have been on the hunt for a new computer, just gotta find one that's pretty cheap, and can pretty much run any game, even if it were only Medium settings.

I recently upgraded an old pc, which was also pci. The best site to go to is newegg.com The prices are phenomenal, especially if compared to an electronics store. In most stores, as was said earlier, the pci stock is som small that they are ridiculously over-priced. I think newegg gets them from teh factory or something, so they are about 50% cheaper, sometimes more.
They also have a test you can run, to find out what products would be best for you. You may also want to look into memory and hard drive upgrades. Those tend to make a really big difference in speed, if you do upgrade your vid card.

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Yeah, but you might as well buy a new machine Kym, unless you want to spend money on pushing it to play low end spec games (like that which the Maxis releases). A motherboard with only PCI won't give you much love for much longer I don't imagine. Doesn't sound like a worthwhile investment to me.

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The only thing worse than beating a dead horse is betting on one.

deliriousstudios:

Yeah, but you might as well buy a new machine Kym, unless you want to spend money on pushing it to play low end spec games (like that which the Maxis releases). A motherboard with only PCI won't give you much love for much longer I don't imagine. Doesn't sound like a worthwhile investment to me.

Too true Del, but I didn't know what kind of options the op had. I'm thrilled that I got a new pc, it is light ages better and was less that $500.00, but that can be a lot of money for some people to shell out.

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Actually, i was quite surprised to find this after a little looking...

http://www3.pny.com/8400-GS-512MB-PCI-Low-Profile-P2679C269.aspx#Specifications

... which might be worth looking at if you can find it cheap (i.e - on ebay). The 8400 chips are solid entry-level ones that are becoming popular onboard graphics choices now, as they can reportedly run Call of Duty Modern Warfare if you don't mind the framerate getting a little low (on lower resolutions, natch).

The way I see it though, the problem isn't the graphics chip itself - it's the PCI slot interface that would be the limitation. The reason they change slot standards is that each kind of slot has an upper limit for how quickly graphics information can pass through it. You could, in theory, put the most powerful graphics card in the world into a pci interface, but it would be a waste because it processes graphics information much, much faster than this information can pass through a PCI slot.

Unfortunately, I can't find any benchmarks or reviews for the 8400gs PCI card, so I genuinely don't know how it'll be for games. It looks like it's designed for media PCs, but it's worth a go if you absolutely must buy a PCI card.

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