A 9600SE is a crippled version of the 9600: 64 bit path to memory, rather
than 128 bit. An FX5500 is the second lowest end DX9 product nVidia makes. I
don't know which is the better sub- $100 (US) DX9 graphics card. Any 9600
that isn't an SE would be much better than either, but more expensive.
There's an almost bewildering variety of cards available (
www.newegg.com).
If you could find someone willing to part with their used Radeon 9700 for a
reasonable sum, that might be a good choice. (There is one concern about
that: the power supply on the Dell might be a bit weak to support such a
card, if the machine is a mini-tower that is maxed out with peripherals.)
The main concern about a (working) used video card is the life expectancy of
its cooling fan. There are inexpensive ($20) aftermarket coolers for the
9700 that are fairly easy to install, though.
nVidia doesn't make graphics cards for retail sale, so any product using
their chipset would be sold by a third party. ATI makes retail products, but
they also allow outside parties to make cards using their chips. Check the
history of the company "3dfx" if you wish to see an example of what might
happen to a company that decides to change from a model like nVidia uses to
becoming a single source at retail. 3dfx went from being at the top of the
3d gaming market to oblivion in a few years.
I hope that your friend's PC is enough to run Children of the Nile. It's
pretty close to the stated minimum CPU to run the game, an 800 MHz PIII
(
http://www.immortalcities.com/cotn/gameinfo/faq.php).
HTH.
Bob Knowlden
Address mat be scrambled. Change nkbob to bobkn.
