i went to the system requirements website, and it gave me the following diagnostics

CPU
Minimum: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP equivalent
You Have: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+
PASS

CPU Speed
Minimum: 1.7 GHz
You Have: 2.39 GHz Performance Rated at 3.40 GHz
PASS

System RAM
Minimum: 512 MB
You Have: 894.5 MB <--- do most games now need at least 1gb of ram?
PASS

Operating System
Minimum: Windows 2000/XP with latest service pack installed
You Have: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
PASS


so it said im good in everything above, except for graphics card. i currently have a 128mb crap series that came stock with the computer.

my main question is, could i simply drop in a 256mb PCI-E geforce and install the drivers and im good? or do i need to upgrade other things as well?

 

Depends on your motherboard. Are you sure it is a PCI-E? It might be AGP...

 

yea im sure its a PCI-E

how do i find out whats my mother board??

its an emachines T6520 with AMD atholon 64 processor.

 

Yes, you have PCI-E.

Here is the info for your computer.

http://www.emachines.com/support/pro...es&model=T6520

Getting a new video card should help alot. ATI Radeon Xpress 200 is a pretty basic card, not to mention your current video card is sharing (stealing) memory from your system. That is why you have 894.5 MB instead of 1024 MB.

 

If your motherboard will support it, there's no reason your system can't handle a PCI-e video card.

Just make sure your power supply has a PCI-e power adapter if the card needs it, and that the power supply has enough power to run it along with everything else. PCIe power adapters are square with 9 pins and should have PCIe printed on it somewhere. If your power supply doesn't have one of these connections, you'll need an adapter.

I think the minimum for a PCIe card is 400w or something. More is better when it comes to power supplies.

 

Good point! I forgot to mention power supply!

I thought the power connector was usually a standard Hard Drive type power connector?

Last card I bought was a Nvidia 6800 AGP card that needed 2 HD (IDE type) connectors...

I am considering getting the new 8800GT myself!

 

Also, make sure your case can fit the card you choose.

The latest mid-range PCI-E cards are very long, so make sure you have enough room to fit the card in without it touching anything else.

 

do you think my computer has enough power to get a 256mb card?

 

what are you looking to do/play?

 

Depend on what you want to play. I would do two things:

1) Upgrade your ram. You only have 1GB; I recommend you get another 1GB. Ram prices have gone down considerably. Once you start playing game, it will drain pretty much all of your memory.

2) I would get the MSI 8500GT 256MB video card. Pretty good card for the money if you dont do any intense gaming.

 

yea im not an intense gamer, i mostly play FPS but alot of games are too crazy for my computer. the most recent game i can run on this computer is day of defeat: source.

id love to get Company of Heroes, Bioshock, etc.

i have worked on my computer before trying to install a computer card, but it was AGP so it didnt fit. should i just bring my computer into geeksquad or similar store and tell them to go to work. i would like to keep this under a couple hundred dollars if possible.