Hi i currently have an AMD athlon 64 3400+ pc which is using an ASUS PCI express motherboard with 512mb RAM (will post spec if needed). The ASUS motherboard has a radeon xpress 200 graphical chipset built in. I tend to buy the majority of top games such as Elder Scrolls Oblivion, and find myself only being able to run the game in low spec although you can play around with the shaders, anti anilising to get slightly improved performance but i want to run it on high all the way. I know i will need to majorly upgrade the RAM to at least 1gb and was wondering for the first point whether the pc will fully recognise the RAM if i add a second RAM stick (1gb) along side the 512mb giving a 1.5 gb , or do i have to all the way to 2gb (MAX capacity). Secondly the motherboard is an ASUS PCI express with a ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 chipset built into it and along with the RAM im not sure if its powerfull enough to run top games like OBLIVION with all options on high. So i am wondering if i could add a new graphics card to my system and either utilise both or disable the RADEON XPRESS 200 and go with a new card, or if upgrading the RAM is just what the RADEON XPRESS 200 needs. I am a bit of a loss as i have heard of SLI motherboards which allow you to run two graphics cards at once but i am not really up for upgrading my motherboard. If it is possible does anyone know how to do it???. Also finally, i have heard of (PPU) physical processing units which handle all the physics of a game freeing up the graphics card and the processor speeding everything up, does anyone know when these will be available and whether getting one of these bad boys will allow me to keep my exisitng hardware and be able to run games at top spec. Many thanks for any/all respondance it will be greatly appreciated as all i seem to be doing is scratching my head.

Hi LoTTeBoXeD!
Welcome to PC Helpforum!

You can extend your RAM the way you mentioned it.
I personally think that on-board graphics will not be powerful enough to run games like Oblivion.

However, this is not really me area of expertise, so I can't answer all your questions.
I'm pretty sure someone else will post back suggestions though.

Bluefish

thanks bluefish

IMHO-- though I am not an expert gamer... everything I've read regarding the subject suggests that you would probably need both --more RAM and a decent video-card to run all games on high. Onboard graphics usually can't keep up with todays really intensive games. you could try upgrading the RAM first--and see if you are happy-- but future games will tend to get ever-more-intense -- so what works now will be stuggling in a year.
Bottom line... if you like gaming that much MAX the RAM --and buy as much video-card power as you can afford-- you've got plenty of CPU there...so that's no issue-- the upgrade will last longer that way -- and you won't have to spend more too soon.
The dual-card setup is nice-- but you'll get 95% of everything to run with what you've got now-- especially with tweaks-- plus time to save up for the 'ultimate' later on. a single PCI-x card is pretty powerful stuff-- with a good CPU and lots of fast ram.
If you choose well (for RAM) when you upgrade the board and buy the 2nd card-- you can reuse it.

what's your power-supply rated at ??(watts)-- this can be a factor in extreme situations

Hard-core gaming is the most stressful thing you can do on a PC-- that's why gamer-rigs are the most expensive.

i will get back to you on the power supply wattage but what i was wondering is wether it is possible to disengage my on board graphics and slot in a new card possibly a 512mb it should take it as the is space on the PCI express motherboard but will it conflict with the on board graphics. I recon you should be able to turn the on board off in the BIOs but not sure? Many thanks for getting back to me and i will reply again with specifics on my power supply.

Hi LoTTeBoXeD....

With onboard video cards...they are just that - onboard. You can disable them, but you cannot remove them. But you can also install a new graphics card regardless.

So what you're thinking of doing, you will definatly be able to play games in higher detail (not the highest, but definatly higher then what you play now). Oblivion is a hungry hungry game, and chews up resources...I can't play it in max detail without it slowing down in heavy fight scenes. (specs above just under my name if you're interested).