What to upgrade?

[LaurnaRose]

I have a homebrew (bought ... not my own work):

AMD Anthalon 2400+ (1.8ghz)
ASUS
GeForce 6600 256mb
128mb stick (system reads 512 total ram)

I can run the game on "high performance" and set all my IG settings to between 10 and 20 and it still looks decent, but I'm getting 9-15fps and would really like to be able to play with a higher graphical setting and get better fps (well duh).

So my question is ... do I need to invest in a new machine in general, or would upgrading my mem change this drastically?

AS WELL...

See if you can help us figure this out. Above my comp stats, where hubby is running an Emachine.

AMD 64 XP (2.16ghz)
Geforce 6200 256mb
512 system RAM

... and he has to set the game on EXTREME performance (think its actually called very high, but you get the picture) ... and still is lucky to get 5fps. He says it isnt even worth playing. Im not much on what all the components of computers do and what makes them so different, so could someone tell me why there is such a big difference in our gaming abilities. It seems to me that with the just a few slight differences between our processor speeds and VGC series that they are very similar in quality, but run completely different. Can anyone give me suggestion on how to get hubby's comp in a position of playability?

[FEDS-91]

Honestly RAM is the easiest, cheapest upgrade you can do. If you can its fairly cheap to bump up to 2gb and would make a world of difference in your machine running the game smooth. I'd put 2gb in each PC if you can. It'll make a big difference for both of you.

[Nil]

Originally Posted by LaurnaRose

I have a homebrew (bought ... not my own work):

AMD Anthalon 2400+ (1.8ghz)
ASUS
GeForce 6600 256mb
128mb stick (system reads 512 total ram)

Ram is what you should look at first. It'll likely make a huge difference for you.

Originally Posted by LaurnaRose

AMD 64 XP (2.16ghz)
Geforce 6200 256mb
512 system RAM

This is an easy one, it's the video card. The 6600 is far and away better than a 6200. That said, he'll likely see a nice leap with more ram as well. He needs to be careful to check how much ram his comp can hold, though. eMachines is not known for using quality motherboards. It can probably take at least another 512 stick, though.

[Pirotess]

Another thing to note as well. Given the video card models, amount of RAM and processor speeds Im going to guess those are AGP based machines too. That being said the best you could do to upgrade the video is to go with a Nvidia 7800gs class card which will be quite a jump but wont be able to give the same performance as a PCI-X based system. If you decide to upgrade the processor, RAM and video card you might be better served looking at an entirely new machine for just a little bit more.

[LaurnaRose]

Thank you all so much for the response. I am planning on getting myself a new machine when taxes come in and handing my memstick and VGC over to hubby (figure better to put in his machine with the higher processor). But .... for now, I guess we will look into mem stick upgrades and see if we can pull it off. Thanks for the imput, much appritiated.