Hi folks -

I'm looking for a computer (desktop or laptop) that will allow my 8 year old daughter to play some of the 3-D PC games (e.g Barbie and the like).

Various people at Best Buy have told me that I need a high-end graphics card to do this. Fine.

What are some brands/models of graphics cards to look for?

Are there any other considerations?

well.. can you please tell us the price you are willing to pay .. maybe we can help you out...

are you looking for a pentium 4....

I'm thinking in the $500-$800 range and a P3 to P4 or similar.

What are some other games you would like to run? I checked and the most recent Barbie PC game (Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus) has fairly medium to low game requirements.

Those games never have steep requirements and really don't require much power. A $50 video card and a $300 computer will probably be more then adequate.

BUT, the people at BestBuy don't want you to be unhappy because they (most of them) honestly don't know what it takes to run the latest Barbie game. So they recommend high-end to make sure you're happy at the end. And yes, there are plenty of employees as BestBuy that have no idea about anything either... That's okay though... Because a high-end video card / PC is going to work great for you. If you're on a budget though, its the wrong choice for your purpose. To be frank.. any new, "name brand" computer will work with current 'kiddie games' very well.

The latest Barbie game, for example, has the following requirements:

• System Requirements
• Pentium®III(or equivalent) 450 MHz or faster;
• 300 MB hard drive space
• 24X speed CD-ROM drive;
• 128 MB RAM;
• 16-bit color @ 800X600 resolution;
• DirectX® 9.0 or highter;
• 32 MB 3D video card with DirectX® 9.0 or higher compatible driver;
• DirectX®-compatible sound card

There isn't a system you can buy new which doesn't exceed ALL of those requirements at least twice.