DirectX and my video card

[Nsmist]

My current computer I'm running on is a AMD 64, and can run America's Army like it was made for it. When I buy Medal Of Honor Pacific Assault for it, it says its a no go.

The message says that my computer requires a video card that can fully support DirectX 8.1, and this machine does not fully support it.

I don't do as much custom work on computers as I should, so I figure go and download the latest DirectX (DirectX 9c). Same message.

Obviously turning to the obvious fact now that I need a ATI or nVidia series (as it states in the message) video card. I'm not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed for video cards. Turning to sources through google, most coming up with figuring out the card slots are PCI or AGP, in which I opened up the case to find that the slot is 1.5" (forgetting which is which). After which, looking through the various "having to setup the BIOS" and "uninstall the drivers", its come to a somewhat comfusing conclusion.

So more of which I'm asking, is for some advice and I suppose guidance towards getting this machine to run the game. I don't need any high-end $800 top of the line one, but something that will work with this and hopefully some other games.

Thanks.

[i an not a nerd]

Nsmist, WELCOME TO THE PCGUIDES! . Your computer probly uses an AGP slot. A good card for most games is the Radeon 9800XT (http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121520). This card will run all current games extremly well!

[Nsmist]

Obviously the card is quite nice, though are there any other alternatives, maybe 1 or 2 versions lower, or something of about the same power that might cost a bit lower?

[i an not a nerd]

Hmm, i'm gonna post without a link here. Another decent card is the Radeon 9600 Pro....

Being Canadian, I like to support Canadian companies, so I don't research nvidia cards as I do Ati cards. A good Nvidia card is the Geforce FX 5800. Well, from what i can find out, it is.

[dlove]

SPEAKING OF direct x 8.1 i installed a 9200 ati and all is well but when i ran a test on it says that the dx 8.1 did not load correctly? i down loaded the lastest dx . my cards seems ok but, i still get this message when i run the test again. this just happened last night so i still checking out stuff but maybe someone can shead light on it.

[bassman]

Nismist, We really need more system info first. Neither PCI or AGP is only 1.5". I am guessing since you are running an AMD 64, you will need to look at PCI Express cards.
Since I have succesfully updated to DX9 on various different machines (all of which are older and less advanced then the machine you have) I doubt it is your video card restraining you. Please post your motherboard specs and,if you have a seperate card, the current video card specs. If you are using the on-board, let us know ;)