Well first, I'll say this - For dirt cheap, you haven't gone wrong! Now as far as your RAM goes, its probably less than PC3200, most probably PC2700 so in my opinion you are  probably best off to replace the lot. I can't say about mobo compatibility though.

Take a look at this page.

The RAM there won't overclock very well, but it will certainly bring you an improvement. I would consider 512mb and above, I run 1Gb of GeIL.

If you have a more 'flexible' budget then you can get anything up to these, but I would think they would be wasted in your system unless your into serious overclocking. The whole range of worthwhile brands are here.
Hope that helps!
Dan

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Either I'm getting myself confused or one of us is wrong lol. He says he has got 256mb on the card, and to upgrade to 256 as well? And yes, all things are worth considering, but nowt I can think of will beat the link I gave him to the G Skill stuff!

High_Flyer,

I made the mistake of expecting the 9600 to work miracles too when I first bought one.  Compared to what video I WAS using before then.... it seemed like it should be a WORLD of difference.  I expected it just HAD to fix the various framerate issues I was having.

I installed a 9600 pro (which is 128 M of video RAM) on my old 2.4 gig P4 w a 533 fsb and 1 gig of ddr RAM.  Surprise, surprise...... it didn't cut it with FS2004 where it really matters... short final at a big international airport with lots of AI and eye candy running.

I now have upgraded the whole machine to the specs on the trailer below...... and it STILL is no screamer by any means... but it is FAR better.  I can live with this.  But I STILL can't max out everything that FS2004 has to offer.

Up away from the ground and the AI and so on........ 70-80 fps and smooth as silk.  Of course.... there is no demand on the system there.     Now at least with MOST stuff in FS2004 maxed..... I can sustain 30 FPS in the demanding scenarios.

You for sure need to go up to at least 512 M or RAM..... preferable a gig.  But don't expect geometric or exponential increases in performance... they are more "incremental" improvements.

You can also consider investing some bucks in Ramsa's machine tuning service to get the most out of what you have......... which a lot of people swear by.

You are not alone in "the search".


best,

.................john

I had that card. Its kinda funny. As I was replacing it, I compared it to my new Radeon X850XT and WTF? The damn 9600 is a midget comnpared to the x850xt. anyway. the 9600 Is a good card. I was getting 20fps at some points (with best quality). Nothing like the x850 but still a pretty nice card.

For the question about the mbs. no, switching to a 256mb doesnt make mutch diference. I would suggest changing your card to a Geforce 6600 or radeon 9800.
even though some people may think Im being mean for telling you to change the card. You could probably find the 9800 for under $300 or $200 if you search really hard.

Anyway, it still is a pretty good card. Its actually pretty good to play battlefield 1948 (but you wouldnt be interested in that)

cheers