Hi i was wondering if anyone knows if a vid card is the most important piece of hardware for a gamer? This is my setup: 1.OS- Win ME 2.Motherboard- MSI k7n2 3.CPU- Athlon XP 2100 4.Memory- 512mb ddr 5.Vid card- G-force FX 5200 AGP(128mb ddr) Is this a good setup for gaming? Any changes you would recommend? i know vid card is not that great, but you can still comment on it.Thanks.

1-CPU 2-GPU 3-RAM Sorry to say this, but FX5200 is really crappy. It's more of a Geforce 2 Ultra with Direct X 9.0 Support. But, even if you upgrade it, your current system will hold it back. You may want to save up some money first and upgrade your processor/mobo before you buy a new video card. Aspire X-Dreamer II Thermaltake Purepower 480w PSU Asus P4S800 Motherboard eVGA Geforce FX 5900 SE Thermaltake Giant II Kingston 512mb DDR400 Western Digital 120gb 8mb Buffer 7200RPM

It all depends on how high end the games you are playing and what detail you want them at. A video card gets lagged by a slow processor, and graphics get lagged by a slow video card. The Athlon XP 2100+ (if yours is not a plus then what I'm saying is actually faster than yours) is 1.73GHz and is decent, not the best, however I would get a faster video card. Maybe an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (around $200 now). Your memory seems fine, all depends on what you want to do. I have 1GB of RAM and have never had a problem. I guess the biggest thing is to try playing a game that you want at the detail that you want, if its slow, then up the video card, and if its still slow then up the processor. Just to let you know however, an OS is not hardware, it is software. I would definatelly NOT want to use Win ME for really anything. Definatelly consider upgrading to Windows XP. I play Unreal Tournament 2004 at full detail at 1280x1024 without problems, and a lot of other games the same. Here are my prefered specs: Windows XP Pentium 4 2.4GHz (with HyperThreading and 800MHz FSB) ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Creative Labs Audigy Gamer with Creative Labs Inspire 5200 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers (gotta love surround sound). 1GB (4x256MB) Dual Channel PC3200 (DDR400) memory etc

heh, UnR3aL typed his message before I could submit mine. I completely agree with him though.

Thanks for the info guys.Are you saying my motherboard is outdated? It can handle at least up to a AMD athlon XP 2700 or higher it says in the manual and was just bought last year. I really don't think it is very old. The CPU is another story.I was planning on upgrading to a XP 2800. I will also be getting a radeon 9800 pro most likely. As far as Win. ME goes, what's wrong with it? I thought it was a pretty good OS, but certainly not the best. Is XP really that much better?

To answer your question, "What is most important hardware?", I'd have to answer motherboard. The motherboard is the foundation for the entire machine. The fsb (front side bus) rating is what determines how fast data travels accross the motherboard from one component to another. I don't know what your fsb is, but new boards are 800mhz. As far as operating systems, be careful. I dissed Me here one time and was thoroughly pounced. One of the regulars around here has a website with a list of tips to keep Me from crashing so much. I think if you browse the Me forum, you'll find a link to that site. My opinion is that Me is just 98 with a ton of stuff tacked on. From what I've seen, XP is ~way~ more stable. When it first came out there were issues with XP and some older games - don't know if that's still an issue. If you only play newer games, it's not an issue anyway. Best Wishes, Bob

Well, I'll throw in my 1.5 cents as well. As far as what UnR3aL, Sord and Bob have said, I agree with most of th advice. However, my line goes like this: FSB CPU RAM AGP You need to know that your Front-Side Bus (FSB) is probably your most important feature. It is one of, if not THE, most overlooked feature by the buying public. In fact, most of the buying public (thanks to the PR machines of Intel, AMD, etc.) have never even heard of a FSB, and yet it controls how much data actually flows from your CPU. Therefore, I would place it in FRONT of the CPU in importance. Example: If you have a screaming, top of the line, multi-threading CPU paired with a generic low-end FSB, you are actually accessing half, if not a third of the power available from that particular CPU. Basically, everything on today's motherboard architecture is connected to the North-South Bridge, which derives its speed from the FSB clock. Look for an 800mHz FSB, standard on all gaming machines made by Alienware, Falcon, Northwest, etc., but lacking on your Dells, HPs, Compaqs, etc. (They have to cut costs SOMEWHERE! Why not cut into the motherboard, which the buying public knows so little about anyway!) -Mick