Upgrade help

[MetalHead]

hey i got half life 2 the other day for free with my ATi voucher and i have to say that the game runs like a pig on my machine even with everything down low, dont get me started on the load times. My specs are:
- AMD Athlon XP 2400
- Radeon 9600XT 256Mb
- WD 80Gb Hard drive 8mb cache
- 256MB DDR PC2700 RAM
- Gigabyte GA-7VA Mobo

I knew i wasn't gonna get great performance with a high level of eyecandy but even on low this runs like crap. So i've decided i'd upgrade and wont play half life 2 till i do cause i dun wanna reck the experience.

So can sum1 help me out here. I just need a few questions answered.
1) Is now the time the upgrade or should i wait for new technologies to have matured.
2) Should i get DDR2? Wat's the difference/
3) When is the next round of video cards coming up
4) and should i get 64bit processor or stick with 32bit? If so who should i go with, Intel or AMD?
5) wat is BTX should i get that over ATX

thanks sorry that was a long post

 

[seinfeldrules]

Holy shit you need RAM. You have such a major bottleneck with only 256mb. Everything else is decent, but you must have problems with some of the normal XP functions, let alone HL2.

1) Is now the time the upgrade or should i wait for new technologies to have matured.

There will always be new tech. coming out. No matter when you buy something, a newer, better version will come out 6 months later. Why wait when HL2 is already here? The newest vid cards just came out too.

2) Should i get DDR2? Wat's the difference/

No idea.

3) When is the next round of video cards coming up

I heard next summer, but I could be wrong. I think it is speculation at this point because the lastest round just came out.

4) and should i get 64bit processor or stick with 32bit? If so who should i go with, Intel or AMD?

64bit with AMD. They are the only ones who have it available at the moment. Intel is releasing theirs next spring, I think.

5) wat is BTX should i get that over ATX

Again, no idea. Sounds like AT -> ATX if I had to guess. You'd have a hard time finding a case for it if there were newer port locations that went along with the new design. I'd stick with ATX.

 

[MetalHead]

K thanks alot and anyone no how well the 64-bit CPUs are goin on WindowsXP 64 bit edition