Time to bit the bullet?

[A man in need]

I am a gamer and enjoy online games. I also enjoy playing the latest and
greatest first person shooter games - such as BF1942, America's Army, etc.

I have an older system - that I spent a small fortune on.. and still runs
great. However, it is antiquated and needs some help.

My goal is to buy very little hardware -- but make it the best gaming
machine I can with what I have. Let me know your suggestions.

Specs:
Asus P4T533-C motherboard (533 FSB)
Intel 2.26 (533 FSB) P4 overclocked to 2.55Ghz
1GB of RAMBUS PC800 (crucial)
ATI Radeon 9600XT Firehand 128MB AGP
18GB Adaptec SCSI U160 19160 controller with a Fujitsu 10K U160 drive
SBLive Value

Now, I know the video card is antiquated... but, it's still expensive to
buy! 1GB of memory is plenty for gaming... but, it's the slower RAM
(compared to what's out there now). With the motherboard I have... I am
limited to AGP video cards, no PCI-e, 533FSB, etc.

Should I get a nicer video card - like a GeFroce 6600GT and call it a day?
Or should I move to SATA Raid 0? Or both?

Thanks for your help!
A man in need

 

[Kadaitcha Man]

I am a gamer and enjoy online games. I also enjoy playing the latest
and greatest first person shooter games - such as BF1942, America's
Army, etc.
I have an older system - that I spent a small fortune on.. and still
runs great. However, it is antiquated and needs some help.

My goal is to buy very little hardware -- but make it the best gaming
machine I can with what I have. Let me know your suggestions.

Specs:
Asus P4T533-C motherboard (533 FSB)
Intel 2.26 (533 FSB) P4 overclocked to 2.55Ghz
1GB of RAMBUS PC800 (crucial)
ATI Radeon 9600XT Firehand 128MB AGP
18GB Adaptec SCSI U160 19160 controller with a Fujitsu 10K U160 drive
SBLive Value

Now, I know the video card is antiquated... but, it's still expensive
to buy! 1GB of memory is plenty for gaming... but, it's the slower
RAM (compared to what's out there now). With the motherboard I
have... I am limited to AGP video cards, no PCI-e, 533FSB, etc.

Should I get a nicer video card - like a GeFroce 6600GT and call it a
day? Or should I move to SATA Raid 0? Or both?

You should do some tests to see if your AGP bandwidth is being maximised. If
it isn't then your RAM is the bottleneck. If the machine is driving the
video card at near full tilt then the card could be the bottleneck.

 

[Phisherman]

Consider Microsoft's XBox. It is M$ intent to dominate the gaming
market, and it's my guess that they will.

 

[jaster]

I am a gamer and enjoy online games. I also enjoy playing the latest and
greatest first person shooter games - such as BF1942, America's Army, etc.

I have an older system - that I spent a small fortune on.. and still runs
great. However, it is antiquated and needs some help.

My goal is to buy very little hardware -- but make it the best gaming
machine I can with what I have. Let me know your suggestions.

Specs:
Asus P4T533-C motherboard (533 FSB)
Intel 2.26 (533 FSB) P4 overclocked to 2.55Ghz 1GB of RAMBUS PC800
(crucial)
ATI Radeon 9600XT Firehand 128MB AGP
18GB Adaptec SCSI U160 19160 controller with a Fujitsu 10K U160 drive
SBLive Value

Now, I know the video card is antiquated... but, it's still expensive to
buy! 1GB of memory is plenty for gaming... but, it's the slower RAM
(compared to what's out there now). With the motherboard I have... I am
limited to AGP video cards, no PCI-e, 533FSB, etc.

Should I get a nicer video card - like a GeFroce 6600GT and call it a day?
Or should I move to SATA Raid 0? Or both?

Thanks for your help!
A man in need

Tomshardware posted an editorial recommending upgrade the video card
over cpu upgrade. The thinking is most cpus are fast enough for current
games but the graphics are getting better.

I'm running XP 2000+ GF4200, 1gb 3200 mem, ATA 100. Far Cry only slowed
down around the volcano smoke and as the editorial said my fingers are
only so fast.

 

[bubba]

A few months ago MaximumPC said that raid 0 actually slowed down some games,
with others made no difference, but never improved game performance. Turns
out the big loads from disk (maps) eat a lot of CPU time uncompressing the
map

I've used plenty of servers where good (adaptec) raid cards improved
performance - but can't see where it'd help in a game except maybe a small
improvement in saving game state.

Video card is probably the best bang / buck ratio