What Graphics Card?

[vialli25]

Hi, I have a relatively old omputer seeing as it's 4 years old. I want to be able to play the latest PC games on my machine but wondered if it was just a graphics card I'd need.

My PC Specs are

WinXP HE
1GHz Pentium 3
128MB RAM
40GB HDD

and I currently have a GeForce 2 MX. Now I know this is shit compared to what you guys have now, but all I wondered is, would it be ok for me just to upgrade the graphics card or would that not improve the performance of my games that much? Would I have to upgrade my RAM and processor aswell?

Cheers, James

p.s I know I'm a newbie so go easy on me...

 

[koldapu]

wow, how are you running windows xp on 128mb RAM? you're gonna need a RAM upgrade, at least upto 512mb. The processor is kind of pushing it, but as long as you're not playing games like Doom3 and Farcry, then I think it should be okay . . .

As for the graphics card, it matters on what you want to do, and what your budget is

 

[vialli25]

With perseverence and a little bit of knowledge is how XP can run on my computer.
Yeah, I wouldn't even try and play Doom 3 on my PC, it would most probably explode!
I just wanted it for games like C&C Generals and Sim City 4 so that the maps don't jerk around when I play them.
I'm most probably getting a new PC for christmas so do you reckon I should wait? I have about £50 to spend, know it's not gona get me much but I was thinking maybe the GeForce FX 5200 would do me until christmas.
Honestly though, is it worth it? Or shall I just wait?
4GHz processors are supposed to hit the shelves by this christmas aren't they?

 

[Regulus]

I once heard that Sim City 4 jerked around on some guys computer and it had like 2.66 GHz on it. I know that when I played it, we wound up selling it because it was so bad, but that was just what I heard, I don't know, maybe he was lacking something else.
I, personally would wait until christmas for a whole new computer.
I don't know if 4 gig processors are in this christmas, but I hope!

 

[koldapu]

well, i know amd motherboards with pci express will be out, as will the 6800gt and ultra in pci -e

 

[grego]

Im on a 733mhz P3 with 512mb ram, win98se, and an ATI Radeon 8500LE 64mb. Sim City 4 runs decently, there is a little bit of loading time sometimes, but the gameplay makes it worth it.

I'd say grab another 384mb of ram (cheap) and a $100 vid card and you should own games like SC4.

 

[compy]

i would wait for christmas...

 

[Cxar]

I would put in a 512 mb ram module, then as grego said drop in a video card in the 100 dollar range and you should be pretty well set to run games like ss4.

 

[compy]

well...i wouldn't dump in any money for how close christmas is, i would save it for the computer i was going to get for christmas, but if you have money to burn and you can't live with what you have then dump what you want into it. do what they said and buy RAM and vid card if you are gonna play with money right now.

 

[Apokalipse]

if you get a Radeon 9600 (pretty cheap now) you'll have no probs with the games you play
what you really need for XP: I can run XP on a P3 500 and a TNT2, it did have 128MB RAM but I've upgraded mainly for gaming

when I verse 7 Brutal enemys in RA2/YR I get literally 3-5 fps in the middle of the battle, but I kill them and it stops lagging