Well, that worked

Thanks to those of you who gave me suggestions for stuffing a new graphics card into my shiny new PC. I went with Mal's suggestion in the end, and it was a very good one. The PCI card went in with absolutely no hassle, Windows XP and Ubuntu both recognised it fine and could work with it without any issues. I even managed to get some of the more graphically interesting Linux games working nicely, though I did have some issues with whatever that one where Tux is sliding down a mountain on his belly is called this week. Don't know what that's about, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Unreal Tournament on XP now runs extremely well, even at the highest possible res (it damn well should, it's nearly 10 years old, which is one of the things that made me frustrated enough to buy the new card in the first place). I got EVE working too, though after sitting through the interminable introduction (pretty though it is) I didn't have time to actually play the damn thing.

The PCI wireless card has been consigned to my bit-box and I've instead plugged in a cheap access point which works quite happily as a wireless adaptor, and also gives the OS the helpful illusion that it's talking to a wired network. I haven't investigated this yet, but I'm wondering if I can use it to both allow access from my PC to the network and effectively act as a repeater for the main router, so that the network is more accessible upstairs. Not sure if it's possible, but it would be nice.

In short, I have shiny new hardware joy. Now I just need to get around to doing the work I'm supposed to be doing instead of playing with my newly rediscovered crop of games.