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[quote]If a Vista laptop cannot run the game without a sound card and speakers, then playing on a laptop is not very practical. So, if I am playing on my laptop under Vista, which has Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0, NOT an audio card, AND I do not have speakers hooked up, will it run?[/quote] In this context 'sound card' doesn't mean a physical card, just some device capable of playing back sound. So your integrated HD audio is fine, no problem. And your laptop [i]will[/i] have speaker

[quote]What about an ATI Radeon X550? Is the 9600 older or newer compared to my card?[/quote] The X550 is newer but less powerful than the 9600. It should still be fine though, provided you turn the detail levels down.

[quote]With my 4x AGP slot what video cards could i buy? DO 8x cards work or does it have to be just 4x compatible- thanks for the help[/quote] An 8x card will work fine, they are backward compatible with 4x slots.

I've been playing Eve for 4 years. It used to be the best game around but since Trinity it's become a bit of a joke. Large scale combat - the best part of the game - has become almost impossible due to crippling performance problems with the server. It's not my idea of fun to warp an expensive ship into battle and end up staring at a frozen and empty screen for 30 minutes while the server catches up. It's also not fun to only find out that expensive ship was destroyed 20 minutes ago bec

Make sure you have Vista hotfix [link="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105"]940105[/link] installed. Sins crashed constantly on my system without it.

Sins should run on a 6200. It works on the GeForce 5200 in my laptop, but so slowly I'm glad I don't actually have to play for real on that machine! :) But it would definitely benefit from a more powerful card. Even if you don't have a PCI-express slot upgrading to something better than a 6200 should still be possible using AGP or PCI.