graphics card help needed

[Carrym]

My nine year old brother is desperate to play Lego Bionicle Heroes but our elderly P.C just isn't up to it. Error message says the graphics card needs to support pixel shaders 1.1.
Can't afford an expensive graphics card or new P.C. Can anyone suggest a really cheap card that is compatible with our machine and will run the game?
The only technical deatail I have about the machine is AGP 66/133Mz, VGA. and we have Windows XP.
The game gives min requirements as "DirectX 9.0c compatible cards with 64MB ram, supporting vertex shader 1.1 and pixel shaders 1.1."
I know little about computers (as I'm sure you can tell) so any help would be gratefully received!

[oracleguy]

How cheap is "really cheap"?

This card would do what you want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143083

And it should work in your computer.

[ghell]

I expect any graphics card compatible with that system will be dirt cheap anyway.

Is AGP 66/133 AGP 1x or AGP 2x.. I don't remember.. Anyway, just avoid pci and pci express cards, and agp 4x and agp 8x, and get one that supports directx 9.0c. Wikipedia says agp 2x is "A 32-bit channel operating at 66 MHz double pumped to an effective 133 MHz resulting in a maximum data rate of 533 MB/s; signaling voltages the same as AGP 1x;" so I expect you have an AGP 2x slot.

Unfortunately it is quite rare to find an agp card of this age. (I'm not sure if agp 4x and 8x cards would work but not to their full potential, or just plain not work at all. The card oracleguy linked to is agp 4x/8x. If you visit that site's AGP 2x/4x section (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000380048%201069609638&name=AGP%202X/4X) you can see 10 cards, 3 of which do directx 9 but don't say if its 9a 9b or 9c.

[infotechweb]

use ebay mate for cheap graphics, you can get some really good deals on 1 year old technology, this is recommended. I bought my graphics card off ebay for a smigeon over 50 dollars, and it plays GTA: San Andreas.

Good Luck with your find, hope it goes well, if you need more info email me

infotechweb@gmail.com and i will get in contact with my supplier and see what he can do.

[ghell]

You can get a GeForce 8500 for little more than that now though :P