Several weeks ago, the boys pooled their money to purchase a cool PC game called Spore. Grandpa Paul might have heard of this game. Anyway, the boys have always been careful to check the infamouse system requirements when purchasing games, or borrowing them from the local library. This time, however, a subtle but critical requirement slipped past them…so when they installed the game and tried to run it, no dice. After checking the sys req again, they determined what the crucial requirement was: fancy video card needed!so begins our saga.

I directed them to my favorite online PC store, Newegg.com, which I recommend to every on the planent, now especially after this personal episode. I had to tell the boys that we had a motherboard with an AGP video card slot, but after that, they went to town and took little time to whittle down the search results to two NVIDIA cards by PNY. I cautioned them that the cheap one would suffice this year, but what happens if they buy some more sophisticated game next year. Would they have to upgrade again? And, since AGP is an aging interface, would they be able to obtain a fancier video card in the future? At first they said no, they didn’t want to spend the extra bucks, but after sleeping on it overnight, they decided to splurge on the fancier card: GeForce 7600GS.

So, we ordered it, and it arrived just a few days later(Newegg tradition of fast shipping). The boys and I installed it that night:

Notice everyone’s hands on the chassis, for proper grounding

The big shaggy thing on the right is Aaron’s hair, quite the electrostatic hazard in and of itself!

See the WAY cool fan on the card, hmmmmmm….

They finally were able to run this weird game, and wow! So this is why people spend the bucks on things called video cards. I couldn’t believe the difference. The boys were ecstatic, and the game turned out to be quite spectacular. Then they went to bed(awwww), and Dad got on the computer to fire up the ole flight simulator. Wow…I could turn on ALL the graphics options: shadows, smoke, tree leaves, runway gravel, reflections, everything. What a difference! Then Cyndi got on and played her new game Da Vinci’s Secret. And she said everything looked better, the jewels sparkled, and certain screens became available(previously, the screen used to turn black). BTW, none of the pictures on these websites do justice to what happens on the computer with this video card. The difference is remarkable.

So, after a very short conversation, we decided that since we benefited as well, we would chip in for half the cost of the card. So, the boys were only in for the price of the cheap card, and got the fancy one! Everyone was happy. But then…