Nothing slows a video game down faster than bad software from the mother ship. That?s why companies like Intel and Nvidia offer free graphics accelerator downloads for their various graphic accelerator chips.

But you have to know what you?re doing before you undertake this kind of surgery on your computer. One false move, and your system may become unbootable.

It always helps to know what your computer has before complaining about performance.

Take the case of poor ?jeoges,? who suffered a fate of slings and arrows when he sought help at an online forum. He wrote that whenever he tried to start a video game, an error message said the graphics accelerator was not present. What could the problem be?

After several snarky replies for posting such a generic problem, one kind contributor, jam, finally concluded that jeoges? computer had Intel?s GMA900 ? an extremely weak, low-end graphics processor incapable of running most video games. Jeoges needed to install an actual video card.

He recommended the GeForce FX5500 256MB 128-bit PCI card. Immediately someone wanted to know why the 512MB PCI graphics card hadn?t been recommended.

Jam replied that the 512 MB PCI card was a PCI Express card that?s in compatible with jeoges computer.

That?s one simple case proving it?s a jungle out there in the land of computers. The novice who wants to use a computer for video gaming needs to read the game?s packaging, find out what the game requires and live with the fact that if a game requires something the computer doesn?t have, the game can?t be played.