Graphics Card Dying

I am saddened to say that I believe my graphics card for my desktop is dying. My wife and I started noticing a problem with the graphics on PC games a couple weeks ago.

At first it appeared the screen would stuttering for a few seconds. We thought it might have been the Internet connection, because sometimes we would have lag problems, especially if there was a lot of players on screen at once.

Then the games began loading more slowly and there would be small graphical glitches momentarily. Plus the screen stuttering persisted and grew gradually longer in how long it would take for the lag to clear.

Now sometimes it can take more than five minutes for a game to load. When it does finally load there is no way of knowing if it will even be playable. Sometimes the screen will freeze up and other times it will look like a jumble of objects.

I have had this computer for over six years now, so I should have known that I would need to upgrade soon if I wanted to keep playing the newest games. I'm not sure if I want to spend the money upgrading my computer. I don't play as many games as I used to, and I can just buy a replacement graphics card for fifty dollars.