What is slowing my gameplay?

[TheDevopsGuy]

so these are my computer specs :

Asus P4S800-MX
Intel pentium 4 cpu 3ghz
1gb ram

Video card:
geforce 6200 agp 8x
300mhz core
532mhz memory
size 512mb

i have 200-300 ish to spend What would i need better to get better gameplay/fps i know what the ram needs upgrade can u tell me any good budgety ram not the gaming ram but maybe 1 that supports most at good price i heard kingston is cheap and its pretty good for normal stuff if so which possible way should i go a 4x2 or a 2x4

1.more thing i needed to add i recently went from xp to 7 and i noticed that many more games are slower then before maybe its because windows 7 requires more ram and reduces the performance of games?

 

[Zen]

I hate to just dive in and be the bearer of bad news, but you ask us what is slowing your gameplay down? Well to be honest, almost your whole system is holding you back, and holding you down!

Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.0 Gig's = This might be the only good part of the system, if it's (H/T) even better!

1 Gig of system RAM = At the very least you should have 2 Gig's of RAM! 4 Gig's would really do you here, which a lot of places sell 4 Gig packages for decent prices. Well scratch my bright idea, just grabbed a peek at your board on Google, 2 Gig max support, forget the 4 Gig thing!

The Nvidia GeForce 6200 = Crap, crap, crap and a little more crap! The 6200 wasn't really meant to be a gamer card. You've got yourself a low level budget card! The 6200 were pretty much just a half a step up from most on-board video adapters of it's day. Plus most 6200 from back in the day were PCI slot only cards, not PCI-e or AGP! Looking at the motherboard on Google the board does not have a PCI-e slot, only a AGP slot, might want to get a better video card that supports that format.

Question - What is your power supply rated? 250 watts, 300 watts, 450 watts, ect. ect. ect. what is it? Knowing how much electrical power we have to play with here, will be a determining factor as to what this system of yours can be upgraded to.

Lastly, only speaking for myself, I would have never in a million years thrown Windows 7 on such an old system! I would have stuck it out with Windows XP, no questions asked here, I would have kept Windows XP as my Operating System. People might think I'm odd or strange here, but defendant upon the age and format of the technology I use in a computer build is the deciding factor of what type of Operating System the computer gets. Like your Nvidia GeForce 6200, that came along at the tail end of the Windows 2000 Professional era and at the beginning of the Windows XP era. I would then think I could go two ways here, run Win 2000 or Win XP, because both O.S.'s are true to the date of your hardware's release.

Increase the RAM from 1 Gig to 2 Gig's
Leave your Intel Pentium 4 alone, it's fine, it's what I use!
If your keeping that motherboard, go back to XP!
Kick the Nvidia 6200 to the curb, find a new AGP styled card.

Please click on the provided hyperlink, it will launch you to a decent little card, which I suspect would be way better than that 6200 your playing with. And this might stir up ideas of even better video cards to play with!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187043

Updated Edit : I was just thinking that if you want the "whole splash" for just hundreds of dollars, than I would hold off buying anything to extensive here for your current system. I would maybe start researching "all in one" or "budget" systems, I know lot's of people who purchased "all in one's" and are having a pretty good time when using their systems. The provided hyperlink is what I'm talking about, you might want to save up a little bit more money, to be honest your not that far away from affording one of these.......

http://www.frys.com/product/6376051?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

maybe give systems like the one I directed you to some thought! Forgive me for telling you it might be better all together to buy a new system, I'm just trying to throw out some ideas here!

Hope all this helps.....

 

[TheDevopsGuy]

thank you i realy know that my computer is bad tho i dont know exactly if i actualy can do anything else atm though i guess its better to buy a new computer and start upgrading it bit to bit guess its the good way to go

 

[Zen]

thank you i realy know that my computer is bad tho i dont know exactly if i actualy can do anything else atm though i guess its better to buy a new computer and start upgrading it bit to bit guess its the good way to go

Don't worry yourself so much on saying you've got yourself a "bad system". Back in the day your little system kind of rocked. Sometimes we just have to face the facts and know when our backs are up against the technology wall. I mean your current system isn't bad, just upgrade the video card and put 1 more Gig of RAM in it and I would say it might be ready for old school games like Quake III Arena, Half Life, Unreal Tournament 1999, Dues EX "the original", Heavy Metal.....you know, games that are true to the time period of your computers hardware.

That "all in one" I directed you at Frys.com is also a good way to go! If you feel that you've got as much out of your current system as your going to get, maybe going "new" is the way to go. Seeing that you have a max of $300.00 you can spend right now, maybe holding off until you can afford a decent "all in one" deal may be the way to go.

Just give all this some thought, don't rush to make a choice right now. For if you decide on buying 1 more Gig of RAM and new video card, that will tap into money's that could have gone into a system like the one I shown you. Either which way I'm sure you will make the best choice for you! Maybe some other TechSpot members will come along here and maybe blow you away with even greater options than the ones I stated, who knows!

 

[TheDevopsGuy]

the best thing to do is buy a new case and start building a new pc abit by bit but atleast first i need to get 500-700$ then il start upgrading

 

[LNCPapa]

I built my wife a decent 2500K rig for about $600 minus the video card. She's been using IGP for some time now but she'll be getting a huge video upgrade next week. I think you'll be able to set up a really nice machine for that dollar range.

 

[captaincranky]

1 Gig of system RAM = At the very least you should have 2 Gig's of RAM! 4 Gig's would really do you here, which a lot of places sell 4 Gig packages for decent prices. Well scratch my bright idea, just grabbed a peek at your board on Google, 2 Gig max support, forget the 4 Gig thing!

The Nvidia GeForce 6200 = Crap, crap, crap and a little more crap! The 6200 wasn't really meant to be a gamer card. You've got yourself a low level budget card! The 6200 were pretty much just a half a step up from most on-board video adapters of it's day. Plus most 6200 from back in the day were PCI slot only cards, not PCI-e or AGP! Looking at the motherboard on Google the board does not have a PCI-e slot, only a AGP slot, might want to get a better video card that supports that format.

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i have 200-300 ish to spend What would i need better to get better gameplay/fps i know what the ram needs upgrade can u tell me any good budgety ram not the gaming ram but maybe 1 that supports most at good price i heard kingston is cheap and its pretty good for normal stuff if so which possible way should i go a 4x2 or a 2x4

1.more thing i needed to add i recently went from xp to 7 and i noticed that many more games are slower then before maybe its because windows 7 requires more ram and reduces the performance of games?

I know you solved the memory issue Zen, but here's the thing, TechGamer needs to tell us what version of Win 7 he's running, before he can even imagine putting 4GB into ANY system, let alone 8GB..

OK, the Nvidia 6200 is incompetent by orders of magnitude for old games, let alone new ones.

Actually, an Intel G41 or Core i3 IGP will almost double the score of a 6200 in the "Windows Experience Index"! And God knows, you can't game with with either of those platforms.

A stock P-4's duties should be limited to the duties I have set aside for mine. That would be, going on the internet to insult other people's P-4s.

BTW, this mobo has DDR, so you wouldn't be finding any really hot deals on memory anytime soon. (About $25.00 @ iGB).

Also, you could almost build an Intel G-41 based computer for $300.00. Most of those boards seem to have
DDR3 in them. So, a board + Pentium Dual Core = $100.00 or thereabouts. You get 1 PCI-E x16 slot, and away you go... Nvidia 2xx cards can be had pretty cheap

You won't be taking down any i7 rigs with it, but it's worlds away from what you have now.

That's my "so your money's burning a hole in your pocket, quick fix". Somebody have a better idea? No really, anybody?

 

[calavera]

I would recommend either a X1950 Pro or an HD 3850 AGP. I'm not sure if your CPU would be a bottleneck for the 3850 so thats why I also recommended the X1950 Pro. I have personally owned both of these cards and they were great in their day. Heck I am still using a HD 3870 PCI-E and it still runs all the new games.