Vista - just purchased GeForce 8500 gt card

main reason is because my current video card isn't supported on vista and is only running on 16bits instead of 32 and overall picture display seems to be dark then usual even with the brightness on the monitor turned up all the way but i only have a regular 15.7inch monitor.

i was wondering if putting in the 8500 would improve picture quality..

It might. Only one rael way to find out.

which is to put the 8500 in right?

Yeah, pretty much. It's hard for me to know too much without knowing what the old card was and all that. Increasing the number of color bits will certainly help.

The darker monitor, though, may not be related. By "regular" do you mean Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)? These can, over the years, dim a bit. An upgrade to an LCD or plugging in another CRT might give you a bit of a clue.

But, if you've already got the 8500, go for it. Upgrading to a card that is supported by Vista will definitely be a plus.

i just found out what my current video card is and it's an old nVidia card and i tried looking for the drivers on the nvidia site and i had to select Legacy>Riva 128 PCI Series

and yes i think my monitor is a CRT and i have had it for a few years so maybe that is the problem but the 8500 should be coming in the next few days.

In that case, you'll definitely see some improvement. Not just in picture, but in shear speed. Let us know if you need any help.

A Riva? Anything thats newer than that will improve your performance. But I must say getting a 8500 was a little foolish. It underperforms and shouldn't be considered as a 8 Series GFX card (to me that is :P)

I would have gone for at least an 8600..

if u want to improve pc perfornace buy 8500gt BUt in order to improve the picture quality u can increase saturation and brightness to a certain bit in the onboard graphics which also removes the darkness problem