I need a new graphics card and I'm fr*ggin' cheap

[Thoughtbot360]

I just bought Medieval 2: Total War, and it turns out I can't run it without a graphics card with 1.1 pixel shader.

Where can I get one cheap?

[Erloas]

Well I think SM1.1 was sometime in DX8, so many DX8 cards should have it. And of course all DX9 cards are required to have SM2.0.

So if that is your only requirement you can get a card for about $30.

To give you any more real direction you have to know if you have a PCI-E slot or an AGP slot.
There is a good range of cards between the bottom line $30 and approaching the low end of the mainstream cards in the $100 range. If you picked up a $90 card today it will give you more then 3x the performance of the $30 card. It will also mean its going to be a lot longer before you have to upgrade again.

There are some other considerations to take into account, but first we need to definate what you really mean by cheap and if you have AGP or PCI-E. Or alternatively if you have an old cheap pre-build computer that doesn't have either then that really limits what you can do and it might not even be worth trying to upgrade.

[blue_fenix]

If you have a PCI-E slot on your motherboard, NVidia GeForce 8400 chipset is a great deal at about $70, less if you shop around. It's got most of the modern features, including directX 10 support, while still being pretty cheap. Not as fast as the 8500 or 8600, but it's only half the price of those.

[Thoughtbot360]

After some hours of websurfing and poking around my computer, I can say that my video card is a PCI, and an NVIDIA series card, so I think the NVIDIA 8400 sounds like what I want. I wouldn't mind hunting for something in the $30-$50 range, however. But, I was also hoping to pick something up from my nearby office depot.

I thank you for your help. It answered a lot of questions.

Also, I just need DirectX 9 support, not 10.

[Thoughtbot360]

The other thing worth mentioning is:


128 MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 1 support and the latest drivers. Must be 100% Direct X 9.0 compatible

[Erloas]

After some hours of websurfing and poking around my computer, I can say that my video card is a PCI, and an NVIDIA series card, so I think the NVIDIA 8400 sounds like what I want. I wouldn't mind hunting for something in the $30-$50 range, however. But, I was also hoping to pick something up from my nearby office depot.

I thank you for your help. It answered a lot of questions.

Also, I just need DirectX 9 support, not 10.

You don't have the Nvidia 8400 because that is a very new card, less then a couple months old and DX10. However there is a strong possiblity of it being ATI Radeon 8500 because that is pretty old card and is DX8. Or something like the Geforce 4 TI4400 (or that series) because those were DX7-DX8 cards.

Unfortunately they've made so many models of cards over the years that they have ran out of numbers and are reusing numbering from 5 years ago, though the numbers are switching from Nvida to ATI or ATI to Nvidia.


Another unfortunate is that you are forced to PCI because there is almost literally nothing offered in PCI anymore. AGP has been around for the better part of a decade and PCI-E has been around a couple years already. They sometimes make PCI cards but they can't do much with them because they are greatly limited by the old PCI system.
There is little call to manufacturer them and very little demand so they are fairly high in price. You pretty much can't find them for less then about $50, at least if you get a DX9 version. The bad part about that is that a $30 agp or PCI-E card will be a more powerful then the $50 PCI card.

If your computer is that old, though it could be not really old just from a cheap company without an AGP/PCI card, you are in need of an upgrade if you want to play even low end games.
Assuming you have at least a P4/K8 processor then you could replace the motherboard fairly cheap and get at least an AGP slot. But unless you happen to have a high end P4/K8 processor with a very cheap motherboard then its not really worth it to do that. (I happen to have a friend in just about that situation)

Even if you do have a high end P4/K8 processor you could build your own or even buy a pre-built system in the 400-500 range that is going to be considerably more powerful then what you are using anyway.
Here is an example of a decent $550 build (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/10/the_500_gaming_machine_2007_edition/) and you could shave at least $50 off that price with a few changes. Even more if you stayed with the onboard video for a while (which will be better then what you are using and probably at least as good as what you can get for PCI right now) which should let you at least play the game and then you could upgrade the video card later when you get a bit more money.

[Crispy Dave]

the best place to buy would be frys if you have one near you