I am need of purchasing a PCI graphics card, and im looking into either the Radeon 9200 or the g4 FX5200. Iv seen that the radeon supports only DX8.1, so would this be able to run games such as Call of Duty that require DX9.0b?? Iv seen that the FX5200 supports DX9, so would this be a better card? I dont full understand the relation with graphics cards and directx. Can someone please help clarify this for me, and recommend one of these cards, or a superior alternative. Thanks. Dan.

Direct X is like the middle man between the game and the card, designed so that programmers don't have to write different code specifically for each graphics card. Recently Microsoft has brought out Direct X 9, which includes new instructions over 8.1. Many games are now being released that make use of DX9 and a graphics card with hardware support for this will run these games significantly better than the last generation of DX8.1 capable cards. You should be able to run DX9 games on a DX8.1 graphics card, but performance will suffer.

I see - thanks.. So would you then recommend a DX9 card like the FX5200 over any card that runs a lower DX like the R9200?? Dan.