So im about to by a Video Card for my computer. Im looking at a 256mb Radeon 9250. Thats about all i know about Video cards and the one im looking at. My question is i have a 300 watt power supply and i was unsure whether or not that would be enough. Does anyone have any idea or what i would need to look at on the specs to be sure i can handle it . Thanks

4/18/2006 3:48:51 PM

for that card 300 watts would be plenty.

the 9250 is a "low-end" card.

depending on how much you're looking to spend you may be able to get more for the same price.

4/18/2006 3:59:31 PM

yea i knew it was more or less a budget card but i got it relatively cheap. thanks for the help anything else you think i need to know or for see n e other problems

4/18/2006 4:01:01 PM

the only other thing would be to make sure your motherboard supports whatever slot type it is. I would guess agp.

other than that it should just be throw it in, boot it up, install drivers.

4/18/2006 4:05:16 PM

It says that it isDirectx 8. I know most games are directx 9 what does that mean exactly is that a big deal at all or can i just upgrade with the download

4/18/2006 4:19:30 PM

it basically means your card doesn't have the shaders and such to fully take advantage of the bells and whistles offered in dx9 games. So it means dx9 games aren't going to have as shiney water, as translucent smoke, or as dynamic shadows, etc. as they would on a fully dx9 compatible card.

You can still download directx 9 and play directx 9 games, but you can't just fix the fact that your card isn't going to render all the shinyness and prettyness.

[Edited on April 18, 2006 at 5:34 PM. Reason : ]

4/18/2006 5:33:42 PM

basically before buying a game you'd want to look to see if the card is supported.

4/18/2006 6:09:01 PM

I'm pretty sure the whole 9xxx series is dx9, and the 8xxx series was dx8.

4/18/2006 7:50:09 PM

new games will not be pretty

4/18/2006 7:56:28 PM

if you're buying a vid card to play any games that have come out recently, don't buy that one. you're going to have to spend a little more if you wanna play games today.

4/20/2006 11:11:57 AM

The 9250 is an outdated card. Consider this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130278

4/20/2006 11:33:32 AM

Some games will require Direct Version version _ compatible cards before you can play them. I remember getting pissed off at Deus Ex 2 when I bought it because my card at the time didn't support pixel shading.

How much $$$ you looking to spend and what type of video card slot do you have? You can probably get some recommendations from us if you provide some more information.

4/20/2006 12:24:27 PM

i got the 9250 128mb card recently and i've played Call of Duty 2 with no problems and it looks great

4/20/2006 1:12:30 PM

call of duty 2 is running on a 7 year old engine.

4/20/2006 1:14:01 PM

^ is that a question? if so yes, i can prove it, thats why im not sure why so many people recommend the latest video cards cause these old one seem to do just fine.

4/20/2006 2:42:14 PM

no im saying that the reason call of duty 2 runs so well on a 9250 is because it is based on the 7 year old quake 3 engine.

4/20/2006 2:45:46 PM

Quote :

"im not sure why so many people recommend the latest video cards cause these old one seem to do just fine."

With old games, yes. Look, however, at the system requirements for say... oblivion:

http://morrowind.com/games/oblivion_faq.htm

Here we see that the game does not even support the 9250 series. That is one of the reasons people recomend getting a card in newer generations. The older the generation of the card, the less likely it will be able to even run newer games despite how much power and memory it has. Now, nobody's saying to buy a 500 dollar card for an older computer, but a 50-70 dollar card of one of the newer generations is generally a better idea than saving a few bucks on an outdated card series.

If all you want to do is play older games, then it doesn't really matter though.

4/20/2006 2:55:12 PM