What should i upgrade?

[Daner]

Do you guys think I should upgrade anything for my computer? I want it more like a gaming computer

 

[Tmagic650]

Ditch Vista and go with XP... Seriously, all I see is to increase memory from 1GB to 2

 

[Daner]

Why should i ditch vista? doesnt DirectX 10 give better gaming perfomance? and what would extra ram do?

 

[LinkedKube]

Dx10 doesnt necessarily give better performance, you wont see much difference with xp, although since you already have vista i propose keeping it, as to i have used xp 32 and 64 bit along with vista ultimate. Upgrade your ram to 2 gigs and you should be fine.

 

[Daner]

Can Ram make my computer faster? because since i installed Vista my comp is a bit slowere when opening games

 

[Tmagic650]

A lot of games are not well suited for Vista yet. That's why I mentioned using XP for gaming instead. I don't really think you should ditch Vista. I was half-kidding when I suggested that. 2 GB of ram will improve the overall performance of Vista, and a better video card may help too

 

[N3051M]

doesnt DirectX 10 give better gaming perfomance?

It will.. when games start using it to its potential...

Can Ram make my computer faster? because since i installed Vista my comp is a bit slowere when opening games

Yes my gosh yes yes yes. 1gb is passable, putting all eye candy and side bar away, 2gb is recommended, only if you have the cash...

That's why I mentioned using XP for gaming instead. I don't really think you should ditch Vista. I was half-kidding when I suggested that.

so he means dual booting.. if you really want to go through that fuss...

 

[Daner]

a better video card? wait. theres a diffrence between graphic and video card?

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

A video or graphics card is the same thing. The DX10 API will need a DX10 graphics card to use it to full advantage. You will see slower performance with a DX9 graphics card in DX10 games since it will need to emulate DX10. Bump up your RAM to 2GB and you'll be fine. DX10 is also going to be coming on XP (a third party company is coding it for XP), so there's no reason to use Vista ATM, unless you want slower performance\frequent crashes with the crap drivers released by NVIDIA.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

A video or graphics card is the same thing. The DX10 API will need a DX10 graphics card to use it to full advantage. You will see slower performance with a DX9 graphics card in DX10 games since it will need to emulate DX10. Bump up your RAM to 2GB and you'll be fine. DX10 is also going to be coming on XP (a third party company is coding it for XP), so there's no reason to use Vista ATM, unless you want slower performance\frequent crashes with the crap drivers released by NVIDIA.

 

[Tmagic650]

Graphics usually refers to on-board video, that is a graphics chip built in to the motherboard. Video card usually refers to an added PCI or AGP video card installed on the motherboard.

From your system specs, can I guess you are running on-board video? If you are, for gaming, an add on video or graphics card is usually best

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

@Tmagic650, he has an 8800GTS.

 

[Daner]

I actually never liked Vista... but do you know when DX10 comes for XP? kinda the only reason i got it

 

[Tmagic650]

Ok Rage,
I don't use Nvidia cards so I didn't know wether it was on-board or not. Thanks for the heads-up...

... and Daner,

we really have to give Vista a chance. Computers and computer parts are getting cheaper and cheaper. Building or buying a PC powerful enough to run Vista great, will be as common as XP eventually. Not many video cards support DX10 right now anyway. Let's give Vista a little more time

 

[Daner]

okay thanks for the advice guys.. i will buy some more RAM

 

[Tmagic650]

Daner,
be aware that there are game patches available for Vista. If you have trouble running a game, check for a patch

 

[Daner]

This is my uncles system specs. I think that his computer is running ALOT smoother and faster than mine. I know he has more RAM but is there anything else thats better than mine?

I would check for myself but i dont understand computers that much

 

[Tmagic650]

This is simple Daner. You uncle is running XP Professional, SP2. That's what I run. You are running Vista and Vista is brand new

 

[Daner]

So youre suggesting i should go back to XP?

btw i found a RAM block. its a Kingston ValueRAM - 1 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR II hope that should be enough

 

[rgreen]

Going back to XP will free up about 512mb or ram alone, adding that extra 1gb or ram on top of that will make everything run really smooth. Now I would suggest that you use XP but if you need to use Vista too I would dual boot both OS's.

 

[Tedster]

you won't see much performance increase in RAM above 1gb except with a few (very small) selection of games. Your biggest bottleneck is your motherboard and CPU. A P4 is getting a little long in the tooth. Everything else is ok.

 

[N3051M]

there is a lot of eye candy and extra features you can live without (eg sidebar) in vista that you can turn off. That in effect makes it run just as good as XP plus you still have most of the vista functions (search bar, UAC etc).

-Try turning off sidebar. You'll notice MAJOR improvement to your system first go..
-Go to control panel > system > advanced system settings and customize the visual settings. Half of that i've got disabled, you can probably find some features you don't really use or need and turn them off.
-Get a USB flash drive (or if you got an internal card reader, then a card) thats Readyboost compatible. 2-4Gb or more drive/card if you can afford it, and it helps it somewhat.. but this option isn't as good as buying extra ram but hey, you can't take Ram with you to places and to store stuff with..

If you really want to go back to XP you will experience a faster system just because XP is rated to go on pretty much anything, even as low as a PII, and its been out for a long while, so everyone knows the benchmark so to speak. One other possible reason of going to XP (dual booting or otherwise) is for hardware or software compatibility that you need from it.

 

[Daner]

im about to buy a RAM stick. its a Kingston ValueRAM - 2 GB - FB-DIMM - DDR II - 667 MHz - CL5 - 1.8 V

My brother says that RAM sticks should be the same brand thats already in my computer. is that true?

 

[abhinit90]

it really doesnt't matter if it the same or different company RAM only your motherboard should support it and to avoid for checking it some people advise you to buy same quality rams as thay are compatible

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Same brand RAM is preferable, but not absolutely necessary. The RAM should at least be of the same speed, since mixing RAM sticks at different speeds causes problems sometimes. Normally, if you have DDR2 533MHz RAM in your PC and you put in a stick of that Kingston RAM, the faster RAM will be clocked down to 533MHz by the motherboard. It may not always work though, so I'd advise you to get RAM of the same speed as that in your PC for maximum compatibility.