Hey, I have recently decided to upgrade my video card. I kinda skimped last time I bought one, and now it is causing me a bit of trouble.
Basicaly my question is, how expensive a video card do I have to buy to get a decent experience? Im not looking for top of the line, I'm not wanting everything to look better than real life, I'm not trying to make my eyes pop out of my head. I just want the best quality for my money. I want L2 to look smooth, and be able to maybe turn on some of the special options. But all in all I just want a practical, functioning video card for L2. Not more than I need, not at all less than I need.
The Radeon 9600 is a low-end version of a relatively old GPU, I strongly suggest that when getting a new card to get something newer.
I think the ~$100 range can give you a decent video card but you have to be careful, there are some very low-end version of the new GPU's that should be avoided.
I think a good price range for a card that will be somewhat future safe is around $150 to $200 dollars. The high end cards are always around $300 to $400 and the low end cards are $100 and under which may not be able to handle most games.
Have no idea of cost. My new computer has a NVidia GeForce 7800 GTX...game is a smooth and very fast :).
Lots of ram and beefy processor probably helps too, though.
Bought the whole thing upgraded at factory and on line so it's kinda hard to determine component price.