Do I Need A Video Card to Play PC Games?

hii
there is no requirement of any other extra software for these games
all you need is just video and graphics driver installed on your system.

My best advice without knowing your system specs is just to download them and install them and see how they run.
Your computer already has a video card.... you wouldn't be browsing the net without one.
If you're not aware of it, then I'd say it's just a standard integrated card which came pre-installed on your system. I'm assuming your system was just a package? Maybe a HP or Dell?

Counterstrike is really old, so even with a basic video card, you should be able to at least run it. And if you can't, when you try and run it, you'll get an error code which will tell you what's wrong.

HI, this is all based on the inbuilt graphcis properties of you computer, if you have a suffecient graphics memory or video memory so you can play the games, so just check out your on board graphical memory, if it is less the 128 mb then you have to buy a graphics card for playing games, because now a dayz the minimum requirment of graphics to run a game is 128 mb and more...

You don't have to get a controller to play those games, a keyboard will be enough. Though having a controller can relieve the burden of memorizing too much keys to click. Basing on your specified specs of your computer, thats kinda good enough even though you have no videocard at all, yes you can play them but the drawback would be is that the speed of gameplay will be affected. Videocards are intended to make graphics, sound and video look sharper and better. It also relieves the main processor some burden in processing so many data during gameplay thus making your speed and graphics much more realistic and faster. Download times made faster too if you have a videocard installed decreasing the chance of lagging during gameplay specially on online games. So if your into superior performance for your PC you really need to get a videocard for it.

All pcs have video cards in them, they just differ on how much memory they can hold. So yah, a video card is absolutely necessary to play games, but you already have that in your system, your concern would be the video memory. I believe counter strike has a minimum video memory requirement of 512mb(this is different from the RAM or Random Access Memory you mentioned), and it is recommended to have 2 GB RAM and 1GB video for the best gaming experience. I hope that helps, enjoy playing.

If your computer can display anything at all on a screen: text, pictures, the mouse cursor...anything, then you have a graphics card. It actually is essential for more than displaying graphics, and no computer will run without one. Many do not have memory of their own ('dedicated memory"), but share your RAM, so that of your 1Gig ypu probably only have maybe 200-300 megs available to run programs. The more demanding the game, the more sluggish your performance becomes! A 2 Gigahertz processor is not very fast these days (I am writing this on a laptop using 4 Gigs RAM and a 2.5Gig processor), and the people who design and program games tend to push the performance of computers to the limits!

You can easily check out the minimum requirements for esach of the games you are interested in, and if you join a forum or discussion group dedicated to each oine, you will soon find out how much more "grunt" you really need to enjoy the games, rather than just being able to run them.

Considering that your RAM is almost 1 Gig you can maximized the settings of your built-in shared memory of your graphics and you can still play those games. But for you to be satisfied with smoothness of the graphics you need a video card.

As far as i know, if your monitor displays something and you can boot it up. Your pc already has a video card. By the sounds of it, you havent upgraded or switched in a new video card so either you have like an exteral or its internal (built into the motherboard).
Counter Strike doesnt demand a very good video card so you might be able to handle it already.
For Stalker the video card it recommends is a geforce 5700 or ATI 9600.
The best way to test if you pc meets up do these games is a site called www.srtest.com (short for System Requirement Test) its a fantasitc site that matches up your system specs with the game you selected and sees if your pc can handle it.
You dont need a controller, assuming you typed this out on a keyboard and you clicked the post button with a pointing device such as a mouse, you are set.
Some games just support controllers to enhance playability or a different play experience (like retro arcade controls, or console controls)


*Btw, if you do decide to upgrade, just get a new pc. (if you upgrade like VC to a high end one lets say Geforce 9800 GTX, its probably not gonna fit in your case cause the cards these days are big. So either get a new pc from like future shop or best buy (dual or quad is fine) or just get it built.