hi vikas!!If you want to run most games that are out and ones that are soon to come (most notably half-life 2, FarCry, and doom 3) then that's a tough one. The only card that comes to mind is the ATI 9600 Pro, which can be had for a little over $100. They will run hl2, farcry, and doom 3 decently enough, and should run the newer games based on these for another year or so, but it won't be very stunning and will offer mediocre performance.

Pretty much all cards are compatible with all games, so that's nothing to worry about. The reason that i mentioned these three games is that 90% of all games that are going to be taxing on a graphics card will be written using these games "graphics engines", meaning they will run mostly the same.

Honestly, if you can afford it i would recommend spending $200 and getting the NVidia Geforce 6600GT. It will last considerably longer. Whereas with the 9600 pro it won't be able to play modern games after, say, one year, the 6600gt will last 3 years. Which makes sense considering the 9600 pro is already almost 2 years old and the 6600gt is brand new.

EDIT: btw, one thing to be clear on is brand names. ATI and NVidia are graphics chip makers, not full video card makers. They are like Intel and AMD. The card you buy will be made by someone else with these chips in them. The brand doesn't really matter that much since they are all based on a reference design made by ATI or NVidia. The only thing to check is the support each company offers.

Also, i would recommend checking out www.newegg.com. They are pretty cheap (although not the cheapest), but they are also very reliable. I have ordered from them 15 times and never had a problem. Very professional business, which can't be said for most internet stores.

Answered by LAKSHMI V , an ibibo Master, at 4:26 PM on November 22, 2008