decent graphics card for games

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starting off i don't want something crazy powerful, i have an ati radeon hd 5450 with 512 dedicated grahics memory.

and i can't run many games well. the reason i started to looking at this was because i saw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwsQICw-b3Y <- that. this person's dual core 2 gb ram computer can play dragon age better then mine, the only thing better in this one is the graphics card i have a phenom 2 945 quad core with 8 gbs of memory.

so the way i see it the graphics card is what i need for games, if i tried to play dragon age fullscreen at max graphics like that it would crash in 10 minutes that isn't an estimate that is what it does every time.

i don't have the money nor do i want to transfer all my files [which is about 100+ gigs worth just video and pictures alone] onto a new computer.

i'm hoping a graphics card is the one thing that will help.

i'm probably going to keep them windowed because my firewall randomly minimizes a fullscreen game and that crashes half of them i need one that runs a bethesda or a bioware game with minimal headaches. i never thought about the card because most people who run the game have some custom built, high powered type of thing. and i have no idea how to build one let alone the money i don't have more then 400+$ lying around also the same people with the custom built, high powered type of thing are also in the troubleshooting forum on a daily basis, so i thought the card ment jack. but here is a computer no better then my laptop that is playing this thing on a setting that would crash it in 10 minutes if i tried it. so i'm thinking the card may be more important then i thought. i don't want something that can run crazy graphics, i just want decent gameplay some anti aliasing so models don't look blocky and pixelated, skyrim i have to run with no anti aliasing dragon age too, and getting skyrim to run on a screen bigger then 800x600 would be nice. i run dragon age on the smallest widescreen i can tolerate 1260x780 or whatever because of the bar on the bottom, playing a healing mage with a 4:3 screen resolution sucks i can quickly fill up the bar with most of the spells i need and not have enough room for the rest with 16:10 i have just enough slots for my spells.

i can't go by valve games, all of them portal 1 and 2 and all of the half life 2 games run at max settings smoothly right now. i can beat up wheatly in beautiful high quality already.

but the ones i have graphics issues at all are fallout 3, dragon age 1 and 2, skyrim, oblivion. i'm hoping to be able to get them running smoothly and the crashes will be less at least. i haven't loaded up dragon age in a year because i don't want to deal with the lag, and the stutter, and the memory leak, and the numerous crash to desktops i face in one day of playing it. and i'm not talking micro stutter here i'm talking a stutter that gets so bad the game basicly turns into a slideshow after a while.

skyrim is not what it should be the ps3 could crank out better quality, heck the 360 with the graphics bug looks better then my pc. and people say pc versions have better graphics, well i have yet to see it.

i can't buy almost anything on the pc without taking a huge gamble about whether my computer can even run it, the nicer the graphics and the bigger the game i see i wind up getting the console version to be safe, which is what i did with skyrim and for the first time got screwed. maybe something wants me to fix my pc gaming issues.

my budget is 100$ or lower i thought a graphics card is cheaper then replacing the whole machine, but the prices go from 60$ to 300$ or over.

i'm hoping that 80$ will cover what i need, i hate to pinch pennies in the computer or electronics department but i'm on social security with no job and no car, i don't have the money to piss away like i hear most doing [sounds like it to me], i have a credit card but i will not charge anything unless i have enough to cover the price that i charge, i don't know how to pay off the card or interest, i don't even have the account password or username, my dad does that. besides if it was my job i would have lost the card ages ago because i would forget to pay it off or pay interest, i'd have lowest credit score of any living person.

i don't even know how much i have right now, i don't mess with the bank account either, so considering just got skyrim 60$ a microwave 70$ and a new tv between 200$ or 300$ course i did have alot more before i got the tv besides the 100$ that stays in to avoid interest. i don't have much leverage gotta wait for my account to recover.

I can list a couple. may be slightly outside of your price range however, not sure on the current prices.

Take a look at the following.
Radeon 5770 (Ive seen them as low as $110 USD)
Radeon 6670 (Seen them as low as $80 USD)
Radeon 6770 ($110, Biggest bang for the buck.)
Can even possibly go with a 5670.

Geforce GT 440 (round $80 after rebates) (My friend's computer has this card and can run just fine maxed out on skyrim... but he has the version of it with GDDR5 instead of GDDR3 memory which is what it usually has.))
Geforce GTX 460 ($120 USD with rebates, highly recommended IMO)
Gefore 560 ($160-$200, BUT you wont really have to upgrade for a long while)

And Jet, maybe you should really read the information I posted and edited in the skyrim thread, latest post. It may not be your video card (although it is a media server card, made for streaming video for a media server and not much else other than decoding and encoding video.)

I have a Phenom II X4 955 overclocked to 3.7GHz, 4GB DDR3 1333MHz, and a Radeon HD 5770. It runs everything I can throw at it at 1920x1080 with at least 30FPS. If I lower some settings to medium, I usually get around 60FPS (sometimes more).

powersupply probably costs as much as a new computer, i've pumped enough money into dragon age buying this machine and now the new video card 1000+ dollars, i'm not about to spend any more if the game is decent and runs better then now i'll be grateful for that.

i'm not asking for much.

and i said only the games are unstable just the bioware and beth games, i can play everything else on my computer no problem, the only ones not running right are the ones i listed. sony vegas runs good, sims 2 is fine every other steam game not made by those two companies runs good, even darksiders isn't as bad, the only dwnside to pc darksiders is the abyssal armor don't work, but that is a wide spread problem.

and this is why i put down i don't have a job, or a car, everyone assumes i have money, [where i'm not sure] if i did i would have had a company build me a custom computer or something at least if it gets screwed up i don't have to deal with it. and when i am broke i don't spend hardly at all and i don't just charge it without having the money to pay it off.

most of the time i have almost nothing, if i do it's because almost a year has passed this computer is basicly stock from best buy, i have 80 proccesses because i have no clue what they even run and when i do screw with my computer is when it dies. i leave it alone and it is fine i'm not going to just start messing with anything without knowing 100% that it won't screw anything up. and the way i see it the only thing wrong is the graphics card speed is fine, sound is fine, computer runs good. those games run better if i turn down the graphics which tells me it is a graphics issue not proccesser, not sound, nothing else.

also i have several subscriptions one to psn for the plus feature so i know my save files are safe in online storage. rhapsody so i can have my online radio, no other online radio has what i want, which is the rating feature which if i hate a song i can simply click don't play again and it doesn't play it, this feature is something that should be in all online radios, along with skip song. also it is song downloader i can't live without this program.

i don't have the money to piss away like that. since i have the subs on an already tight budget. and i have no idea if it is needed till i try the card.

most likely if it doesn't work i will accept defeat, and just deal with not playing dragon age ever again, at least i don't have to pay to do that. i hate that alot of links i find for things i want could be just a mugen character and it goes through some site that wants money, i'm not a money tree here. a mugen character is an animated sprite which is a moving 2d image, not something i am willing to pay for. heck i just go looking for a song's lyrics and someone wants money, to look at a web page for god sake. and why are ringtones something you have to pay for, how about they make a damn ringtone maker, not one for just smart phones either, and we can make our own from songs we already have. i have 6 ringtones i made myself it isn't hard not worth paying for.

i get tired of going through the net asking for help that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and i get spend, spend, spend like i have the money to do so. i don't and i won't pretend like i do when i got my micro i was in debt to my dad till i had enough in my account to pay it off, my grandma is actually the one who bought skyrim. i was able to get my tv because i had a bit of money built up over 3 months. when i get things i usually wait till i have alot built up or find a site selling the item cheaper and then i go get the thing i want then i have to wait another 3 or more months before i can buy anything else, which is why i always check out upcoming games so i know what i want and how long i have to go without spending, doesn't help i take after my dad the spending machine. often when i am broke i don't even look at amazon to much temptation. amazon is my main online store, because i hate bidding so i don't bother with ebay, if i put money down on something i expect to own it.

i hear this crap to much, i am not rich.

rant over, well at least i feel better now.