Is there a difference between the video card requirements for Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect?

First of all, I'm not great with computers.

Building my own website, yes. Fixing the Internet, yes.

Knowing how to interpret the video card requirements for video games, not so much.



I bought Dragon Age: Origins, spent an hour installing it on my computer, went to play it and got an error message telling me I did not have the video card requirements. I had to install it on my parents computer, and I don't want to make that mistake again.

I tried to find out myself, but felt lost within the first few minutes.



If Mass Effect needs a better video card than the one Dragon Age needs, therefore making me have to either go into debt to buy a video card or install it on my parents computer, which video card would you recommend I get?

My computer is a hand-me-down, kind of old. This probably changes some things, but I'm not computer savvy enough to know what.

Where could I find this, and do you think it would be worth it to buy it?

Is there anything else I might need to upgrade, or anything you would suggest I upgrade, if only to improve gameplay?



Thanks. ^^Is there a difference between the video card requirements for Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect?
The minimum requirements for Dragon Age: Origins for a video card is a Geforce 6600/X850 (for XP) or a Geforce 7600GT/Intel X4500HD (for Vista/Windows 7).



Other the other hand, the minimum requirements for Mass Effect in terms of a video card is a Geforce 6800GT or a X1300XT. Since the Geforce 6800GT out-performs the Geforce 6600 and the X1300XT out-performs the X850, you can conclude that Mass Effect has a higher video card requirement then Dragon Age: Origins.



For a new video card, it'll depend on if you have a AGP, PCI-E, or just a PCI slot. If you have a PCI-E slot, you can't go wrong with this $63 HD4670:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as鈥?/a>



However, if you have an AGP slot, you can also get a HD4670. But the price tag is set higher at $110:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as鈥?/a>



If you only have a PCI slot, then this 9500GT ($92) should do you good:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as鈥?/a>



I hope this helps!