Seeking Upgrade Advice

[Geogaddi]

My computer is woefully out of date. It would be preferable to just build a new one from scratch, but I'm saving for a new car/college and I can't afford that.

What I'd like to do is upgrade my clunker to the point of being able to run newer games. That's all I ask. I don't need max settings with anthrioscopticantialsiasinghighdefinitionlightrendering. I'd just like to play Source games with a nice frame rate (Right now I'm <50 all the time)and maybe some things I've missed out on like FEAR and BF2.

I figure that first and foremost I need more RAM. According to Dell (yeah, I know, but I didn't buy the thing) I can have up to 4gigs.

I need to know if 2gigs would be helpful or counter-productive compared to just 1 gig.

Secondly, video card. How powerful of a card can I get without it choking my system?


Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
512 Ram (2x256)
Intel 865PE Chipset
Nvidia FX5200 128mb
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4600/en/4600/sm/specs.htm#1084976
D:

 

[JNightshade]

In all honesty man, you'd be throwing your money into a sinkhole by upgrading your current rig. It hurts, but I'd recommend saving up and waiting for a good deal on a new machine D:

 

[Icarusintel]

865 Chipset? LOL.

Sorry, that's not very helpful, but JNightshade is right. Save up and get an entirely new system. You can make a very decent system these days for under $1000 easily.

 

[Geogaddi]

I already knew that, I was just making sure.

/me slowly strolls away, head hung low, not in shame, but in acceptance.

Problem is it's going to be more than a year before I have enough cash on hand to buy a car and a computer.

 

[giant384]

its your choice man. new pc or new car

 

[Viperidae]

anthrioscopticantialsiasinghighdefinitionlightrendering.

It's anisotropic.

 

[Asus]

If it comes to a point were you need a better machine to play the games but you don't have enough money to buy a new PC or major upgrades then just get a Nvidia 7600GS/GT AGP card and some generic 512MB ram. The P4 is probably holding ya back quite a bit as well but you'd have to live with it.

Don't want to spend a lot on stuff for this rig since it won't be used when you buy a new PC.

 

[Unfocused]

Get a new PC. Use a bike.