Vista - Ok to play ?

I have a Dell inspiron 1420 laptop, OS vista home premium, 2GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor T2310, Dual Layer 8x DVD Burner.
I am considering buying my 1st. Windows DVD game. I am not sure if my OS can play the game ie. Crysis, Modern Warefare etc. As I understand it, it has a lot to do with what kind of graphic card(?) I have and so on. I have no idea how to look that up. Would someone please explain and list all the requirements I need , and how to look them up? Please use layman terms whenever possible. Thank you.

Welcome to the world of gaming.

When yuo buy the game make sure it's a new one (ie not used before by someone). On the box along the side are the system requirements, usually the minimum requirements.

Surpassing the minimum requirements doesn;t automatically mean your game will play smoothly as there are so many different combinations of PC systems and individuals will have different installed software running in the background that can affact things too.

I generally don't play BIG games on laptops. Mostly because I have never owned one.

Most games have their own forums and it might be better to ask this question on those forums rather than hear. As you can see some people have problems running some games and other don't.

Only way to do it is check minimum specs on the box of the Game...and check it with yours...but yes..you WILL need a decent graphics card and you should be able to tell which yours is buy looking at it through the Device Manager