Which video card should I buy for my XP desktop so I can play The Sims 3?

Question

I'm not sure about the specific information I should post, but what I can tell you is it's an HP Pavilion Windows XP desktop, it has enough space on the RAM and hard drive, and it has a "Radeon 9200 PRO SEC family" video card. I know that my video card isn't supported, because when I originally installed the game onto this computer, the graphics were extremely fuzzy and slow to load. I'd like to buy a new video card, compatible with the list here: http://www.thesims3.com/game/systemreq
While I've done some searching around online, these cards seem to be difficult to find. I could definitely use some help. Also, I'd like to stay under $100 dollars, if possible. Thank you so much!

Answer 1

A bit more than your budget, probably for 110$, you can get a good GPU like Ati radeon HD 5750 1GB GDDR5. You will get excellent FPS on SIMS3 maxed out on 1080p.



In the list of supported GPUs the Radeon HD5750 may not be given but surely it will support SIMS 3 without any issues for sure.Its and excellent Dx 11 GPU which can overkill in SIMS3.



Heres the review about the card - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/173



See there it performs well in all the latest games.



The minimum requirements for you is a 400WATT PSU, PCI-e 2.0 X 16 Slot thats it.

Answer 2

They're hard to find because they're generations old. You can find newer and much faster hardware for much cheaper.



The problem though is that your PC wouldn't actually be compatible with them. The Radeon 9200 uses APG, and AGP has beed superseded by PCI Express (NOT just plain PCI) for the last 6 years. This means that any graphics card you can find will likely be incompatible with your computer.



Not only that, but since it's only a Radeon 9200, it's likely that anything considerably more powerful will be too much for your power supply.

Answer 3

You don't. Your computer is far too old to even bother. The Radeon 9200 is an AGP card, which is not worth upgrading. Even if you blew $100 on an AGP Radeon 4670, you'd still have crappy performance.



Save your money for a newer computer.

Answer 4

I agree. If your desktop does not take a modern PCI Express x16 video card, you'd be best off buying or building a new desktop. A higher quality like the 4670 AGP card may help, but not as much as you'd want

Answer 5

Buy ATI or nVidia or MSI here is some cards under 100$



http://cgi.ebay.com/MSI-ATI-Radeon-HD-5770-1GB-DDR5-Video-Card-/280658178619?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item415887f23b



http://cgi.ebay.com/XFX-ATI-Radeon-HD-5770-HD577AZNFC-GDDR5-SDRAM-PCI-/120711682352?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item1c1afa1930



http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ATI-RADEON-HD-2900-PRO-1GB-PCI-E-2X-DVI-VIDEO-CARD-/200592197570?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2eb43a07c2



http://cgi.ebay.com/Sapphire-ATI-Radeon-HD4670-HD-4670-1GB-DVI-HDMI-PCI-E-/380200943844?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item5885be00e4





ALSO IT DEPENDS IF YOU HAVE AGP OR PCI EXPRESS SLOT IN THE MOTHERBOARD?



AGP

AGP 8x

PCI Express

PCI Express 2.0 x16

PCI Express 2.1 x16

PCI Express x16



OH AND LAST THING CHANGE YOUR MOTHERBOARD, RAM, HDD, AND A POWER SUPPLY AND GET WINDOWS VISTA OR WINDOWS 7, XP IS OLD NOW BUT STILL USABLE!



I GUESS U NEED A NEW SYSTEM BUY MINE! FOR 580! ITS A GAMING RIG!