I recently bought Black & White 2, realising my computer was in need of an update i bought a DvD drive (as b&w is in dvd format)

after installing the game i restarted and tried to load B&W 2,
there was an error stating that b&w only supports graphics cards compatible with pixel shader 1.1, i looked at the readme and decided to try and update my graphics card driver, so i downoaded that and ran it... another error, my computer does not have the minimal requirements for the update.

first of all, how do i know the graphics card i buy will be pixel shader 1.1 compatible? as doing my research i have not found this in the product specification

would you reccomend geting one over £100 ? as these things get really expensive and i hope i dont need the latest one to play.

lastly my computer has 510mb Ram, the game reccomends 512mb or higer, will this disrupt my gaming experience? (i would love to have a faster computer but as always im trying to save for other things)

Thankyou for any guidence, explanation or reccomendations you could give

i wouldnt go for a graphics card, that is below the ATI Radeon 9600 or Nvidia 6200 otherwise you will have an insano pants card for games like that... ideally i would go for a ATI 9800 or Nvidia 6600... but if money is a lil bit tight then 9600XT 256Mb. thats my opinion.

or if money isnt really a prob then X800/6800 of some form lol.

Hello and welcome to techspot!

If you can list your current computer's specs, we can help you to decide what (and IF) you should upgrade in order to get that game running.

We mainly need to know what your motherboard make/model is.

Cheers!

B&W 2 lowest video card requirements are the GeForce 4 Ti and ATI Radeon 8500 models, as these support pixel shader 1.1 since they originally were released during the advent of DirectX 8.1 and the two technologies were subsequent in design. Cheap video cards now are the GeForce FX series (5500 minimum) or the Radeon 9 series (9200 minimum). These cards run at about $50 american. If you have about $100-$150 (American) then the GeForce 6 or the Radeon X series are midrange. B&W2 should run fine on medium with a FX or 9 series card though you might have to turn off smoke, shadow options etc.

Ty

Hey guyz thx
i realised this was gonna be an investment and i dont wana get another one any time soon so i splashed out.

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 512MB- (um dunno if this is right cos i saw the same one 256MB on another website) should be coming through the post soon
and im gonna get some more RAM too.

p.s. plz shout at me if i've bought some crappy thing for way too much, im still a noob with my computer internals.

also ty for notice, i will post my details on my next problem (x keeping finger crossed) hopefully i wont have one.

I am sure a 6600GT would be WAY better if you can afford it. I am however not sure how the prices compare as I am not american. A standard 6600 is also better than a X1300. Have a look for the two cards I mentioned. X1300 sounds impressive, but it aint very good.

I just looked at prices on Cnet Shopper and the X1300 and nVidia 6600GT have similar prices. The 6600GT is WAY BETTER though. Change your order ASAP if you can.

bugga spent too much xD :dead:

never mind as long as black & white works now, im pleased.

Let that be a lesson to you. Do more research in future. First check reviews of the card you are planning to get before buying it and try and get a feel for which graphics card is comparable to which other one. Then you can make a good choice like the 6600GT.