After doing a little research, I know my video card is not going to cut it... I'm using a Dell Dimension 2400 I got last year with Pentium 4, 2.8 GH, 512 MB RAM, windows xp pro and... drum roll... a Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller 64Mb video card! ugh... (Which was great since I hadn't bought a video game in about 10 years... until today!!)
From what I've read... the problems I'm having (black terrain, floating eyeballs, no sid face in the tutorial and choppy music in the intro video) all stem from the crumby video card I have... which also happens to be integrated into the Dell's main board. At least I'm hoping that was is causing the problems.
My next move is to figure out what kind of video card I should get... That's where I could use some advice (keeping my computer specs in mind)... What's the difference between an ATI Radeon and a GeForce Nevida??? This is where my computer knowledge becomes shaky... I have been able to figure out that ACP cards won't do me any good because the Dimension 2400 doesn't have a slot for them... so PCI is what I'm looking at, I believe...
by the way, I've read these boards for a while, but I just signed up for these them today and I'm impressed by the active community!