My old radeon 9250 (bought for £11) Ran Black and White 2, and F.E.A.R, and San Andreas, And Toca Race Driver 3... Must have been a pretty crappy rebuild, man.
As for support for older hardware, yes it's a bit bad that we're forced to upgrade just to enjoy TV, or Gaming, or whatever, but ranting won't change it, neither will the whole abstinence / boycott thing. 3 Things are certain in life. Life itself, Death, and Having your ass scammed.
Play older games if you don't mind the visuals, there's still some great older games out there. If you wanna play newer games, shelling out your hard earned is just another inevitability.