Upgrade Questions For My Computer

Hi there ironMan, im a little confused?

Am i right in thinking you have a 256mb Graphics card, plus 256mb of Memory (reaching your total of 512?)

If so then im afraid it doesnt work like this. The 256mb on your graphics card is used solely by the graphics card for storing textures. Your system memory is completely seperate, and is where all running application store their information. The two cannot be combined.

So in reality you have 256mb of video memory (which is quite a lot, and more than adequate for most games) but only 256mb of System memory.

Now I wouldnt recommend running windows XP with any less than 512mb of system memory, and I would suggest you consider upgrading to 512mb. You can do this by either buying an additional 256mb stick, or buy a 512mb stick. Memory is so cheap these days that I would suggest you buy a 512mb stick, but leave the 256mb in there, giving you 768mb, which is more than adequate.

With 512mb or more you should find games in particular run a little smoother, also windows and all applications should load a little faster. The real difference you will notice will be when running lots of programs at once, where switching application will be a lot faster.

So in short, leave the 256mb stick in there, and put another stick in (either another 256mb or a 512mb stick)

I know, I was little confused too... but when I look at my sysyem info it says that I have 512 mb of ram... so what you're saying is that I already had a 256 mb of ram in my computer, but my video card of 256 mb is different and only for games? So why does it say I have 512 mb when I look at my system info? ... so I can leave my old ram stick in the computer and put another one in? How many slots is there for ram though? Is it just the PCI slots you put them into? Or is there another spot for them? and if there is... where is it? lol, I have no idea....

Thanks for your help though, I appreciate it!

no problem IronMan

Memory goes into their own slots. PCI slots are located along the side of the case so they can have cables going in. Memory wil be located towards the middle of the board, away from these slots

Most motherboards tend to have either 2 or 3 slots. You might want to open up the case first and see exactly how many slots you have, and how many of them are taken.

Now to see how much memory you have, do the following:

Right click on your taskbar, and select "Task Manager". In the window that comes up, select the "performance" tab. Beneath the graphs find the section entitled "Physical memory (K)" then look at the figure for "Total". Is it 262144 (256mb) or 524288 (512mb) ?

If you indeed have 512mb then that is enough, and I wouldnt really recommend any urgent upgrades, you wouldnt recieve much benefit from them.

Yup, it says I have 512 mb of phsyical ram... so there would be no point in getting an upgrade? Even if I got another 512 mb ram stick, I wouldn't see a difference?

You wont notice much difference between 512mb. Right now that seems to be adequate for windows XP.