TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

I need to know what graphics card would be able to play age of empires III at a moderate level that only cost arould $100 if any. If the is not one could you refer me to a more expensive one (not one that is like $300 though) that would be able to play it thanks.

If u want to know a site with prices and no spyware or anything look at www.thediscshop.com.au this will give u some reasonalbe prices u may hav to pay about $150 to run that game. I hav a radeon 9250 and it was only $74 it can run half life 2 an stuff gl

www.newegg.com, and in your budget yuo can get a 9600xt 256 mb agp for about 99 dollars off of newegg. the 9600 can run bf2 and hl2 and that stuff on medium to low settings but for 100 bucks thats a deal

I forgot you tell you that i have 1 gb of RAM and and athlon 64 3200 clawhammerr processor those should be able to help me play it a lot better right.

How can we tell which will work well if the game isn't out yet ? We can speculate quite a lot on it but wouldn't rather wait a few months & get a card that you're sure will work or buy one now that will probably lag once the game is out ?

My advice would be to wait for the game to come, let people play around with it & see which cards hold their ground.

well thank you for that info, 660gt, that can play any game that is put in its way. i have a 9800 pro BOO WHO!

Are you talking about the soon-to-be-released Age of Empires III or the already available Age of Mythology ?

the soon to be released Age of Empires III

6600 gt is the way to go man espically if u have amd anthlon, cus i read in a review that the 6600 gt is tested to run better on amd then intel

My 9600xt with 128MB on my intel 2Ghz paired with 1Gb of RAM can play Battlefield 2 at med settings and 4x AA with 40Fps. i hate it when people think when a card is out for more than a year it is junk....

System Requirments of Age Of Empiers 3

Cards you can expect to run the game, but only at low settings and resolutions:

Geforce 3 Ti
Geforce 4 Ti
Geforce FX5200/5500/5600XT/5700LE
Geforce 6200A/6200 "Turbocache"

Radeon 8500
Radeon 9200SE/9200/9250/9600SE/9550
Radeon X300SE/X300 "Hypermemory"
Radeon Xpress200

Intel 915G/GMA900
Intel 945G/GMA950

Cards that might be able to run the game at decent settings and resolutions:

Geforce FX5600/5700/5600 Ultra/5700 Ultra
Geforce 6200/6600LE

Radeon 9550/9600/9600 Pro/9600XT/9800SE
Radeon X300/X300PE/X550/X600 Pro/X600XT/X700SE

Cards that should be able to run the game at pretty high settings:

Geforce 5900ZT/5900XT/5900/5900 Ultra/5950 Ultra
Geforce 6600/6600PE/6600GT/6800LE

Radeon 9800/9800 Pro/9800XT
Radeon X700/X700 Pro/X700XT/X800

Cards that should be able to run the game with most settings on high

Geforce 6800/6800GT/6800 Ultra/7800GTX
All SLI systems

Radeon X800 Pro/X800XL/X800XT/X850XT
All CrossFire systems

Here is my estimations of the computers that might be able to run the games at [insertsettingshere] settings. I've attempted to balance the memory, graphics card, and CPU.

Look at the graphics card first. You can have a 2GHz CPU and still turn the graphics very high if you have a very good video card. If you are running a 3.6GHz CPU but have only a Geforce 2 MX, you still won't run, or will lag like hell.

The estimated minimum-specs computer
Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz/Celeron 2GHz/AMD Athlon 1600
256-512MB DDR/Rambus memory
Geforce 3 Ti200/FX5200 or equivalent (MX don't count)
2GB Hard disk space?
56kb internet connection?

The estimated "recommended" specs computer (i.e. guaranteed lag free on 800x600 with low settings
Intel Pentium 4 2.0GHz/AMD Sempron/Athlon 2200+ or equivalent CPU
512MB DDR memory
Geforce 4 Ti 4200/FX5700LE/ATI Radeon 9550/9600SE or equivalent video card
1mbps or better internet connection?

Medium settings
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz/Celeron 2.8GHz/AMD Athlon XP 2500+/AMD Semrpon 2600+ or equivalent processor
512MB-1GB DDR memory
Geforce 5700Ultra/6200/Radeon 9600XT/X600 Pro/X600XT or equivalent

High settings
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz/AMD Athlon XP 3200+/Sempron 3100+/Athlon 64 2800+
1GB DDR memory
Geforce 5950 Ultra/6600 GT/Radeon 9800 Pro(XT)/X700 Pro(XT/X800

Max or nearly there
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz or above/AMD Athlon 64 3200+ or above
1GB DDR memory
Geforce 6800GT or above/Radeon X800XL or above/All SLI systems

Thats a pretty good statement, but the 6200 is no where near the 9600pro or xt. I have used both cards and the 6200 is a great budget card but not a great card compared to anything else above its price range. I still can't believe how high the systems specs are nowadays... its kinda scary that 5 years ago a 700Mhz Cpu and 256MB of Ram where a highend machine...

Its true I bought my pc 4 years ago. Intel pentium 550MHz and i can play age of empiers 2 The conqureros at high settings. But now a good 3dCrad is very much nessary for healthy gaming.

If you absolutely have to buy the card now, I'd go for the just released Radeon X800GT which should be available within a few days (if not today) for aprox. 139$ for the 128mb model.

But you really should wait until the game actually ships, as prices might very well have come down quite a bit..