blade995

You may be able to increase that with a bios upgrade, if not, it's a hardware limitation. You would need to google your motherboard model number to find out. Most likely it's a hardware limitation with no way to increase the maximum.

Make sure you have updated definitions before scanning. Spybot has a new version called 1.5. Make sure you are running that. Also use Ad-aware 2007, it's also free and will find stuff spybot has missed.

The 7900 you may be able to use if there is an AGP model. You will need to search. The x1950pro is a really good card, I say you should go with that. The ram that Joe recommended is fine, but I have one thing that may be a problem. If you have 4ram banks and Joe said you can have 2GB max, thats 512mb a bank, and he suggested a 1gb stick. I would look into that. Yes you will defently need a psu if you get the x1950pro. The pre-builts use the minimum wattage just for the stuff in there. You may be able to get by with the same psu if you get the x1650XT but those aren't too good.

Yes thats correct. You can use the 120GB hard drive with the premium. Although I think the hard drive is $150 separate and the Elite is $100 difference so that would be up to you.

You may think the pages load fast but to other people it may seem like dial-up. It's more a personal opinion if a page loads fast or slow.

Well ram should be installed in pairs to make it run in dual channel. Although if the choice is more ram or running in dual channel, more ram would be better. A 2GB ram kit is fairly cheap now a days, so thats well within your budget. For a graphics card you can get a 7900GS or x1950pro for dx9. If you want to be more future proof you could go with the 8600gts which is slower and may be out of your price range with the ram.

To start, frames per second are not measured in hertz. They are measured in fps or frames per second. To measure it you can use a built in program (some games have it) or use a program called fraps. You will need to increase your virtual memory if you are getting that message. I can't give you advice on how to do that since I'm currently on Vista. For upgrade you will need to upgrade your ram to atleast 1GB for BF2. 2GB would be the recommended for BF2 because it's a giant ram hog. A graphics card would be needed also. Depending on your budget there are many to choose from. Tell us how much you are looking to spend. Also make sure your game or any system files are NOT on the removable drive. This will greatly slow down performance. Make sure your drivers are up to date and the games are fully patched.

Well SE personal is an old version. Update to the 2007 version, it's also free.

And 98 is so great for gaming when modern games don't even support it, right. Or the fact that modern drivers don't support 98. Plus any sort of performance gain you would get is minimal. Actually, they do support it. Some drivers don't, but you can get fixes for that easily. Most games support 2000/XP/Vista or XP/Vista. NOT 98. Seriously stop trolling. You don't know what the hell your saying so just shutup.

If you want a gaming machine everyone knows you should run Windows 98 SE, end of story really. I hope your kidding.

I'm sorry but thats a pretty stupid suggestion considering vista costs around $150-$250. Not everyone can just throw away that kind of money -- especially when the problem can be fixed. :roll: Especialy that you can't roll back to XP from a fresh Vista install. Seriously rob, please back up you points with proof before you bash Vista.

For the guys saying Vista is a big no, your wrong. For starters it's better for gaming than xp because of dx10. Games made for XP are not any slower on Vista (except for the old win98 games). Vista is the new stable OS. The drivers are mature, all the bugs have been worked out, and it's faster than when it came out. You people need to stop bashing Vista on stories you read over a year ago.

Yes it is. http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

The games on Toms are not really new games. All of those games rely on more power than memory. I'm talking about Lost Planet, Crysis, Unreal Tournament, COD4, and Stalker. All of which at high settings will/do require atleast 512mbs of video ram.

Sniper the reason I said the 320mb would be a bottleneck is that at higher resolutions the 320mbs of ram will not cut it. He has the rest of the system for high resolutions, so why have the video card have problems with them? Especially with the 22" monitor he got.

[/hide] The respone I wanted.. Ok, so no RAM? works for me. Because they looked cool, and I'm a sucker for keyboards and mice. :-# Yea, I would have no idea about video cards, all I know is I had an option to have one, I said yes. I'll find out in a few days what kind of card I have, I'll also ask about the 8800gtx, or 8800gts, though link me, or give me a direction where to go? Oh ok, that makes more sense, I was half heartedly trying to figure out how it was rated. ^^ Thanks ALOT! Well http://www.nvidia.com would be a good place to read up on the graphics card. Since you have a quad core a 8800gts 320mb would be a bottleneck, you could maybe get away with the 640mb version. The GTX would be my recomendation, or wait for the 9 series to come out. You could also go the ATI route. The HD 2900XTX is really fast for the price. It's around the price of the 8800gts 640mb but is faster. The brand choice would depend on what games you want to play, for instance ATI may be faster at game A but Nvidia might be faster at game B. If you live in the United States http://www.newegg.com would be the cheapest site to buy them off of.

I have not found a good free firewall in a long time. Sygate was very good for free but then systematic bought it and it's no longer free. I use to use Zonealarm but I too found it very restrictive. I do not use a software firewall anymore. I only use a hardware firewall from my router. I don't recommend this to the average user for obvious reasons.

FYI never stop the scan even if it does not find anything for a while. Let it finish. Ad-aware (and others) may find more spyware at the last minute.

You don't need more ram. It will be overkill for what you do. Why the hell did you buy a gaming keyboard and mouse if you don't have a gaming computer? By this I mean a bad video card. I know for a fact your video card is your lowest Vista score. Every computer have a video card of some sort FYI. Your computer would be awesome if you got a fast video card like a 8800gtx. A 8800gts may be a bottleneck for a quad core. The Windows Vista experience index rating is not rated by users that could make up anything they want. The rating goes by the actual hardware, piece by piece and gives it a rating based on the speed.

Wow thats pretty fast for Australia. I always hear tons of people complaining the fastest most people can get is 5,000kbs.

:D I usually get 20,000kbs on most days using this test. Comcast is fast most of the time, but I don't recommend them.

Find out what you have. If your only giving us half the information, then half the time giving suggests might not work. Get Ad-aware 2007 and AVG for a virus scanner (if you don't have one). Make sure the definitions are up to date on all of them. Then scan in safe mode (see above poster).

Assuming $250 is the max your going to spend. Don't get an old ipod video. The ipod classic just came out which will do everything the video does and more. It has better battery life and more space too. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W ... /ipod/ipod

The card itself could be independent (like as a pci-e card) but if it has to share ram then it sucks. A normal video card should be independent of the ram for video memory. For that price you shouldn't expect a gaming computer anyway.

Wait, it doesn't come with a graphics card? Every computer technically comes with a graphics. It how the image on your monitor is displayed. What he means is that the computer has onboard graphics which are integrated into the motherboard. A "real" graphics card would be an add-on card which is faster and will allow you to play games in higher settings. Yea, its called integrated I thought :s people told me to avoid it. It doesn't say integrated there though For that price, it is. I wouldn't really say avoid it for normal computer use, like if your using the computer for office, and internet use. If your going to be playing games, then it should be avoided.