Hello everyone and thanks for your time and interest in my situation.
First off, I am looking into upgrading my Dell XPS 700 system. I have had the system for a couple years now, and while it is still one of the best I have played on, there is room for improvement.
It would be very helpful if someone could tell me if there is a program that would run a sort of "diagnostic" test on my computer's hardware and allow me to post my exact specs (such as type of ram, amount, processor speed, exact video card, etc) to eliminate me giving you guys any false info. Anyway:
A few things I would like to do is upgrade my ram from 2g to 4g. I understand that 32bit Windows XP only supports up to around 3.5g of ram (which I thought for the longest time I had 32 bit). However, when I go into the boot setup and look at my "processor info" it says "64bit Technology - Yes"... This strikes me as odd, but I need to find out if I am running 64 bit or not. It is an Intel Pentium D 3.40ghz processor, but I'd like to have it shown in a diagnostic to be sure.
Another thing that I need to look into updating is my graphic card. Right now I am using a Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX 512mb card and it seems to be doing pretty well, but with newer games such as Crysis, Lord of the Rings Online, and Age of Conan, I think it's going to face some problems. I have heard many good things about the 8800 GT card made by Nvidia for the price, but I have little experience in this area.
I have also heard that your processor speed can "bottleneck" your video card if it is not up to date.. not sure if 3.40ghz would bottleneck the newer cards...
At the moment, Ram and my Video card are the 2 major things I need to upgrade, so I am going to come to a final decision on those first. If anyone can provide me with any information from personal experience or knowledge about my questions, please let me know! Much thanks :laughing:
First off, I am looking into upgrading my Dell XPS 700 system. I have had the system for a couple years now, and while it is still one of the best I have played on, there is room for improvement.
It would be very helpful if someone could tell me if there is a program that would run a sort of "diagnostic" test on my computer's hardware and allow me to post my exact specs (such as type of ram, amount, processor speed, exact video card, etc) to eliminate me giving you guys any false info. Anyway:
A few things I would like to do is upgrade my ram from 2g to 4g. I understand that 32bit Windows XP only supports up to around 3.5g of ram (which I thought for the longest time I had 32 bit). However, when I go into the boot setup and look at my "processor info" it says "64bit Technology - Yes"... This strikes me as odd, but I need to find out if I am running 64 bit or not. It is an Intel Pentium D 3.40ghz processor, but I'd like to have it shown in a diagnostic to be sure.
Another thing that I need to look into updating is my graphic card. Right now I am using a Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX 512mb card and it seems to be doing pretty well, but with newer games such as Crysis, Lord of the Rings Online, and Age of Conan, I think it's going to face some problems. I have heard many good things about the 8800 GT card made by Nvidia for the price, but I have little experience in this area.
I have also heard that your processor speed can "bottleneck" your video card if it is not up to date.. not sure if 3.40ghz would bottleneck the newer cards...
At the moment, Ram and my Video card are the 2 major things I need to upgrade, so I am going to come to a final decision on those first. If anyone can provide me with any information from personal experience or knowledge about my questions, please let me know! Much thanks :laughing: