I don't know if you want a video card exactly. Your current video card should be fine for anything other than 3-d.

Your computer probably needs more ram which would make a big difference on even a old computer.

 

suvh8r, Thanks for the input. Video cards, RAM, I'm sure there is a point of diminishing returns because of the limitations of the processor. In your opinion. getting a card with 64 megs of memory won't make a noticable difference in 2-D Windows?

Also, where does the extra RAM advantage start to taper off? Anything over 256k? If so, it should be easy to find 64 megs of PC100 (I'm assuming...) around. Do you think 512k is overkill?

 

I don't see how a better video card could have any effect on opening up a basic program from within windows. Video cards are built for 3d rendering and they do that well. That's about all they do though. RAM is probably your best bet though getting a new computer with a faster processor would help the most.

 

Running Windows XP with only 192 megs of ram I would not recomend running XP with less than 256 if you can afford it 512 would be what you want XP is a memory

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Colin
suvh8r,

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MidnightDragon
Running Windows XP with only 192 megs of ram

 

Ram is cheap these days. Justify $50 in ram and you're computer will be running 100% smoother/faster.

 

64MB with XP Holy sHIT!!!

You need at least 256mb or it will keep using the harddisk as RAM and slow everything down. Any RAM you can get will help you in speed by at least 200% GUARANTEED.

 

I agree with a lot of what others are saying. You wont be able to tell any difference with a new video card.

Last year I found a Dell on sale for a sweet price (I think it was around $200 after rebate) which I recommended to someone. When it came in they had me set it up. However, it ran so slowly I was amazed that this was a "modern" computer. Turns out that it only came with 128MB of RAM (yeah, I missed that part) and after it finished booting and it was just sitting there with no applications loaded, Windows showed that it was using over 130MB of memory. That means even without starting a single program it was already over the RAM capability and was using disk. Added another 256MB of RAM and the system ran great. If they did more with the computer 512 would have been a better addition but this was a budget system.

 

I guess I'll RAM some in the computer! What the heck, I use 1GB in my home machine, I suppose I should have known better

BTW, I have no idea what the original 64 megs was (PC100 or 133?) nor do I know the speed the additional 128 I just added. I don't suppose it matters cause I guessing that it will only run as fast as the slowest DIMM. Right?