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"Essential Upgrades"

Here's my current specs:

1.4 AMD ATHLON XP
256MB SDDR RAM
GeForce 200 MX

Will upgrading to 512MB and a Radeon 9800 make a decent difference to my game-playing (HL2 mainly) or will the processor speed hold me back?

You'd be better off trying to get a new system completely. You would definitely need a graphics card update, and more memory. The CPU would still be holding you back, and whilst you might be able to put a faster one in, I doubt it. Even then, you are still stuck with SD RAM. To get DDR RAM would involve a new motherboard...

Mess wrote:
> Here's my current specs:
>
> 1.4 AMD ATHLON XP
> 256MB SDDR RAM
> GeForce 200 MX

You'll probably have more chance running HL2 on your toaster than those specs.

Personally, as a minimum:

2500+ XP Athlon
512 DDR PC2700 RAM (2x256 for Dual Channel)
Ati 9600pro/XT

The processor speed will hold certain parts of the game back like physics, graphically the gpu will be fine

Is it SDR, or DDR? There is no such thing as 'SDDR'. If it's SDR, then I wouldn't bother getting more as you'll only end up replacing it at some point anyway.

CPU and RAM would set you back. Even if you put 512mb RAM in, it is only SD RAM and not DDR. Also the motherboard would probably only support AGP 4x at the max, maybe even 2x, while the 9800 Pro would need 8x to run properly.

Here's my current specs:

1.4 AMD ATHLON XP
256MB SDDR RAM
GeForce 200 MX

Will upgrading to 512MB and a Radeon 9800 make a decent difference to my game-playing (HL2 mainly) or will the processor speed hold me back?