Graphics Card Suggestion.

I can play a bit past the minimum requirements for GW with my ATI Radeon 9550 graphics card. I went to systemrequirementslabs.com and the recommended graphics card to play GW particularly EOTN is an ATI Radeon 9600 XT as it is very cheap ($78 on Micro Dimensions Direct). Would anyone here recommend this? I would like to play GW fully without it costing me an arm and a leg.

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Hmm, this depends on how much an arm and a leg is worth to you.... there are loads of cards out there which are plenty good to play GW at reasonable to good settings for under 100$, it all depends on what your maximum cap is for buying a new card which again depends on what system you have (minimum need to know is if its AGP or PCIe and how much RAM aswell I guess, seeing as the processor power of GW seems to be really low for a new game).


If you are asking if your 9550 card can manage... im afraid I cant help , but im sure others can be of more help with this and answering any of those questions.

my 9550 can manage at full settings with a bit of lag. And an arm and leg is about $125 or more for me. All my other systems such as Ram and memory and such can handle the game its just the grap thats a slight problem and I dunno what AGP or PCI is.

AGP and PCI are basically just the "plugs" on your motherboard that expansion cards can plug into. PCI Express is a newer type of motherboard-to-card interface. AGP is the one that was popular for many years but is now being phased out. Its highly unlikely ATI ever made a PCI Express version of the Radeon 9550 (or the 9600 XT for that matter...) so I'd say with some confidence that you have AGP.

The XT series of anything from ATI used to mean that it was the "ultra-level," the gamer's card with all the technological bells and whistles and a 9600 XT should provide a noticeable improvement over your 9550. My worry would be that the 9600 is very old by today's standards and isn't a native DirectX 9.0c card. You can get a Radeon x1300 Pro at Newegg for +/-$90, and a x1650 Pro for around $150. I don't know if that's more expensive than you want to spend, but both are significantly more powerful than the 9600 and full DirectX 9.0c cards.

With your Pricepoint of $125 here are some decent choices if your system is AGP:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...adeon+X1650PRO

But if u step up another $30 (pricepoint of $150+shipping)) the x1950pro would be a better choice
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814241041

I personally would hold out and just save for a new system with PCI-express interface. Just my $.02 and good luck.

I run GW on an X800XT at max settings in 1920x1200 and usually average about 20-30fps. That is completely acceptable to me. I usually run the game windowed too because I use dual monitors and have a webpage opened on the other monitor, and windowed I average 15-25fps.


Just about any card will do you fine in GW.

Ok let me rephrase this. im lookin for a grap card thats around 125 bucks and that can play gw with no lag based on the card not the internet connection.

Oops, I didn't realize how much the x800xt was, I bought mine about 2 years ago for only 125 new

Just to add, i run an x1650pro (mines 512 pci-e though) and can run the game at 1280x1024 resolution on near max settings and i get about 40-50fps. i can get higher with lower res but i prefer the larger screen space. scince getting the card i have had no problems whatsoever.

You didn't mention what resolution you play at. But, considering that the 9550 is almost good enough, then it sounds like you have an LCD or CRT running at 1024x768 - then a 9600XT should be fine.
I'd go for the x1650 pro though - you would be less likely to run into any DirectX problems with it, and you could bump up the rez (if your monitor will support it).

1280 x768 is the res i play at