I'm not a PC game enthusiast, but I run Medal of Honor - Allied Assault sometimes. I just bought Battlefield 1942 and my video card won't run it. EA Games said I had to have one of the following cards:

Nvidia GeForce 4,
Nvidia GeForce 3,
Nvidia GeForce 2,
Nvidia GeForce 256,
ATI Radeon 8500,
ATI Radeon 7500,
ATI Radeon,
Matrox Parhelia

I'm sure that there are even better versions of these cards now, but I don't know which one would do a better job. I'm running a Dell PC and my card takes a PCI bus. Anyone with a good recommendation for a new video card?

I suggest the Radeon 9800 series.  

I have the 9700 Pro and am very happy with it.

Edited to add:

Also, I didn't see your PCI comment.  You'll have to do some research.  Not sure if all the heavy hitters come in PCI.  Mostly AGP.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html  

This is a link to a very inclusive chart of many cards.

what speed processor do you have?

1.5 Ghz, 512 ram

Well you really need to look at a new pc if you want video performace, PCI isn't going to cut it. You need AGP.

Between nVidia and ATI, it seems they each come out with a new card about every month so they are neck and neck as far as performance, so just pick the one you like.

Well, If you only have a PCI slot available, you can either get an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 for ~$75 or a slower Nvidia Geforce MX 440 for ~$50.

[url=http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=&sumit=Go&description=14%2D145%2D055&searchdepa=0]Geforce 5200 at Newegg[/url]

I've got the ATI 8500.  I haven't had any problems with it.  It's been able to handle every game I've tried.

if you want pretty much universal compatibility for 99% of the games out there NVIDEA is the best way to go. I have seen issues with the ATI radeon series of cards with some of the more high end games. Also several games that didn't support radeon at all.

If your looking into high end gaming PCI will work but AGP will make it enjoyable. The buss speed for most pci video cards is marginal.

I get most of my hardware free as test equipment and so far i have had the best gaming luck with the NVIDEA GEFORCE4 ti4200 i have now. I replaced a radeon due to incompatible drivers with some applications we were using. I have also had good luck with the MATROX cards but for the same price you can generally get better performance from an Nvidea card.

My system information said PCI, but this picture of my computer it looks as though the Video card is in an AGP slot.  Is this correct?
[img]http://mywebpages.comcast.net/unwind5/agpcard.jpg[/img]

I can't believe that a 1.5mHz CPU supported motherboard does not have an AGP slot. You gotta have one on there.  Open computer and look at slot that is closest to the CPU. AGP slot is usually darker than PCI slots, sits farther back, and is always in the first slot position.
That being said I would go for 9800 ATI.  Driver problems with ATI is a thing of the past. To me, Nvidia has been passed in quality.

Nvidia cards are 99.9% percent reliable.

ATI has had an on/off driver issue's as far back as I can remember.

I've used nothing but low-end and high-end Nvidia cards all PC I've built for friends and family and haven't had one problem yet.

Nvidia has never failed me and I've been playing with 3D cards for PC's back before they even had a standard API to agree upon.

Which games have you seen out in the last two years that won't run with an ATI card?  I can't think of any off the top of my head. What I do know is that Half-Life 2 will be fully optimized for the ATI card because Valve´s Gabe Newell was very disappointed with nVidia's terrible performance in DirectX9 (unable to generate suitable framerates). Nvidia has admitted they had big problems with DX9 with the pixil shaders in particular. Guess who has driver problems now. To be honest I think nVidia went sour when they bought 3DFX. Cursed maybe.

rn45, I would just get a PS-2. It costs about the same or less than a good video card, and there is never a compatibility issue with ANY game! Plus you can get a PS-2 version of just about any game out there. I played Medal of Honor 'Frontline' on my son's PS-2 after I couldn't get a game to work on my PC. It was incredible. Now I have a few games for it myself. It works better than my computer and it never stumbles. From now on I just buy any game I like on PS-2 because I know it will play right the first time I try it, with no issues at all.

You would think so, but unfortunately that's not always the case. My father picked up a new HP/Compaq a few months ago. It's basic specs are; P-4 2.5GHz, 512MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM (expandable to 1GB) and Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition operating system, 120GB Ultra DMA HD. And the video card specs; •Play video games using the integrated Intel Extreme graphics with up to 64MB shared video memory. I get him a new game for X-mas, 'Prince of Persia, Sands of Time' and loaded it up. The game wouldn't open and I had several error messages about the lack of video capability, etc.. Updated drivers did not help, and configurations were not available. He tried to play it anyway and the monitor went completely blacklike it stopped working. That was it, the video card must have been overpowered. It took me a while to get the monitor back on. Eventually we decided on getting a dedicated video card for the PC, the onboard chip was obviously insufficient
I opened the case to check for an  AGP slot and found NOTHING. No AGP slot! What a joke. We can't even put in an AGP video card in a fairly new computer! Instead of going to a PCI video card he decided to get a PS-2. No problems, every game loads and works without a hitch. Why can't a fairly new computer with decent specs handle games as well as a PS-2? I'll never understand that. Even some high end AGP cartds have issues with some games. He got the same game for PS-2 and it works great. (Sorry for the hijak rn45).

Well Call of Duty had ATI card issue's.
COD had to release a patch to the newer ATI cards to work.

Nvidia may claim to have DX9 issue's, I haven't seen one yet in any of the new games I've played maybe the yet to be release games will, who knows. I'm only going off the past and present.

My Co-Worker (the other tech at my work) has used nothing but ATI throughout the years and STILL does for the video/MPG features, will tell you the exact same thing, ATI doesn't have things as tight as the Nvidia standard.

It may work fine for you and your friends but we see ALOT of computers and from time to time we have had ATI driver issue's.

Nvidia, 1 driver works for every card, no if ands, or buts, and I've NEVER had an a video card issue.  

I've had issues with the Nvidia cards.  I bought a G3 a couple of years ago and it wouldn't even run basic games.  Not sure if it was a compatability issue between the card and the computer or what.

First you update your Mboard drviers(reboot), DirectX update(reboot), then install the Nvidia reference driver(reboot) working Video card day in day out.

I was refering to games not being supported by cards. Not supporting games and having driver issues with games are two different stories. I ran 52.16 nVidia drivers and they wouldnt work with Battlefield 1942(Desert Combat). Halo had all kinds of issues with nVidia FX cards.

edit: I remember back in the old days when certain games would only work on D3D or openGL.  Glad those days are over.

You know, now that you mentioned that I remember seeing some computers with those crappy on-board Intel video cards with the shared memory and missing AGP slots.

If that is your case rn45 I think you would be better off in the long run buying a new mobo/processor and video card then running a PCI card.

I edited my earlier post to add a picture of my MB. Look at it and let me know what you think.

Almost any computer has a PCI bus, regardless of whether they have AGP or not. The PCI bus controls the PCI slots.

You however appear to have an AGP slot as well, which are short and brown like in the picture. What's your budget?

Looks like you have an AGP slot there. So the sky's the limit.

After the Christmas carnage, I'd like to stay under 200 bucks. I don't need a TV tuner in the card. I just need it soley for the computer.  I bought an All in Wonder Pro some time ago for my other computer and I don't use most of the whistles and bells.

An ATI 9600XT is about the best thing you can get for under $200. It's price/performance leader these days.

My children built & financed their own CPU box 6 months ago, They built a machine that really rocks.

They used an AMD Athlon 2100 which is now at the bottom of the line, but at the time they built their machine, it was mid. And they also bought a bottom of the MSI Ti4200 vid board(there were 2 others in the line) but it has never failed to play any of their games. It uses the Nvida GeForce4 Ti8 chipset, and supports AGP8X.

I personally played Blackhawk Downed on it and it was pretty good. My son has played other games and according to him hasn't had any problems so far.

I'm in a similar situation.  I want to spend about $200 on a card.  I like games, but I'm not crazy enough to spend $300-400 on a high end card like the 9800.

I've been doing some research on this board: [url]http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=3[/url] and there is some really good info.

Especially check out this thread for beginners:  [url]http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=3[/url]

I'm not sure how accurate that guy is, but he basically lists all the cards in order regarding performance.  It also lists the prices, and he makes suggestions for the best card for $100, $150, $200, $300, etc...

Seems like in the $200 range, the guys on that board are split about 50/50 between the Radeon 9600XT 128 meg card and the Geforce FX 5900 (non-Ultra) 128 meg card.

To me it seems like the Geforce card is faster, but some guys are arguing that the Radeon will be better for future games like Halflife2 and Doom3.  It's hard to weed through all the brand loyalty shit, it's kind of like the old Colt vs. Bushmaster arguments.

Keep in mind that different card makers make the 9600XT and the 5900NU (NU=non-ultra), so so the prices and quality will vary.

To compare prices, check out: [url]http://www.pricewatch.com/[/url]

And to check the rating of online stores: [url]http://www.resellerratings.com/[/url]

Hope this helps, it's a lot of reading...

from that picture it appears to be an AGP slot. You will need to find your system manual and determine what speed AGP slot you have. 2x 4x 8x etc.. prior to purchasing a card.

AGP slotss are set back on the system board further than the PCI slots and will have a locking mechanism to lock the car in place.

mike