Performance problem

[Drunk]

hey everyone, got a question and was hoping to find some help. i have a pretty outdated pc that i got about 2 or 3 years ago, and the video card that came with it was the nvidia geforce 2 mx which doesn't meet the minimum requirements for like 90% of the newer pc games out today. so i went ahead and shelled out $500 for a radeon 9800XT video card so that i could enjoy these newer games. but even with the top of the line video card i'm having performance issues just playing single player, non networked games like far cry, and painkiller. anytime there is more than one thing going on in the game, it gets choppy and laggy and hangs up on me. does this mean i have a bad video card, or do other components of my pc make this happen? if so, how much upgrading do i need to do to be able to run the games smoothly? here is what i have right now.

P4 1800 MHz (4.5 x 400)
256 MB RAM
80 GB hard drive
Radeon 9800XT

thanks in advance for any help.

[Archmage1]

Well, first of all, FarCry is a system hog the likes of which I have never seen. Frankly, I think it is vastly overrated as a game and obviously poorly optimized. I think both your processor and RAM are insufficient for FarCry.

Now, on the other hand, with Painkiller, I think more RAM would help a lot. If the 256 you currently have is DDR and if your mobo supports more RAM and DDR RAM, I think adding 256 or 512 more would help a lot.

I'm not sure what you mean by 4.5 X 400 though and I am certainly no tech expert. But IMO, RAM is your current bottleneck.

I'm sure you know to update your Catalysts and defrag and disable anti-virus and other extraneous processes running while playing.

I think update the RAM now and plan on updating the mobo and processor within the next year or so, unless your hellbent on FarCry, in which case I hope you have credit cards...

[moya]

General rule: if you run XP and you only have 256 MB of RAM, it's not enough to run many games acceptably. Like Archmage says, upgrade to at least 512MB.

[HeddaLora]

It might also be helpful to defrag. I like Diskeeper (http://www.executive.com) personally, had it for a few months and it works very well.

Hedda Lora
p.s. I'm new here. Nice forums!

[Lara]

It might also be helpful to defrag. I like Diskeeper (http://www.executive.com) personally, had it for a few months and it works very well.

Hedda Lora
p.s. I'm new here. Nice forums!
Welcome HeddaLora!! Thanks for joining in, and hope you visit and post often :)