okay so i figured out my vid card was in fact, integrated. after i had bought a brand new NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 256 MB DDR. so i hear the motherboard is too old for AGPs. is it possible to add them? or do i have to change the motherboard? 2nd question....if i cant, how do i disable integrated cards and get the computer to read a PCI one?

if it doesn't have a relatively modern agp slot, like version 3.0, you can't use that 5200...disable on-board video in the bios and you can use a pci video card and then install the drivers DFI lanparty 875p-t LGA775 2.8 @ 3.5 2 x 512 Geil Ultra Platinum PC4000 @ DDR500 128 meg Radeon 9800 Pro DUAL 36 GIG WD Raptors RAID0 21 in. 19.8 viewable Sony Trinitron 4 Mbps cable

... and no, it is not possible to add an AGP slot to a motherboard that doesn't have one. It's PCI or nothing. Stuart

Don't feel too bad about this. I'm convinced that the whole idea behind the MBoard and chipset on it is planned obsolesence by Intel and Dell. You are one of thousands that have discovered that what they own isn't what they thought it was. They thought AGP was AGP. While the concept of integrated graphics is fine because it serves a need, carrying it to the extreme as is your case is not about saving money as much as forcing you to ungrade sooner. If your present graphics are not adequate I would recommend that you consider replacing the entire system. PCI cards by thier very nature are inferior. That is why the industry migrated to AGP and NOW to PCIe, which is not to be confused with PCI. All the subsystems in your computer are dependent on each other. You aren't going to impove a whole lot by changing one component. Exceptions may be memory and storage space. If you consider a new rig, post an question here asking for recommendations. You need to identify what tasks you will require the computer to perform.

i was just aiming for a PCI card with at least 32 MB.

Well that certainly isn't what you bought the first time.

okay so theres this game the sims 2. its next generation graphics. the sys requirements are as follows: OS: Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP CPU: 800 MHz or faster RAM: 256 MB or more CD Drive: 8x or faster Video and sound: DirectX 9.0 compatible Video card: At least 32 MB with ATI or NVIDIA i have everything else but the vid card, and the game installs directx 9 when installing the game itself. so do stores still sell PCI cards???