Yup, another Video Card thread. (Suggestions Request)

Well, i greatly want to upgrade my vid card but not sure if it will help...
First off, i know my PC tech pretty well. Been around em since age 11 cause of me pops. So heres the deal...

I have been playing GW for 17 months now but am dying to run it in a much smoother manner. I have been averaging an FPS of 20-35, however i get teh constant drops down to like 10 frames, and when i am in a simple environment i can get 40+. I want to be able to stay ABOVE 30 at all times, so i need some suggestions for what yall think would be my best bet for improvement. So my suggestions request actually pertains to my whole rig, not just vid card.

PC Specs:

2.6g Pentium 4
1gb 333 SDRAM
ATI Radion x700 Pro 256mb
P4 L4S5MG/651+ mobo

So basically i have reached my mobo's limit on almost all features. Ram speed is capped at 333 (currently running @), graphics is limited to AGP 4x (current card is 8x/4x capable), and remaining headroom is for the chipset. The processor support on the mobo is 478 pin and up to 533 Mhz FSB with hyperthreading, and speedwise i should be able to go 3.0g+.

I haven't been in the PC component market a lot lately, but it seems PCI express is all the rage as it shows increased performance capabilities. Now the fact remains i cant even hit up actual 8x AGP cards and i would THINK that my x700 should easily be able to handle the load. So could it be processor? More ram needed?

Frankly, im at a loss for my lack in performance . Admittedly my rig is more then a couple years old, but still considered a pretty descent setup. I am heavily considering rebuilding a whole new system, but want to hear suggestions for easy upgrades for possible performance boosts...

What say you?! If i have not given enough info for suggestions i will be happy to add more, and if i have my facts wrong on something, don't hesitate to smack me. LoL

Thanks ahead of time!
cheers!

Pretty much hit it on the head. Thre is not much more that you can do to your current configuration to get anymore speed out of it. Best thing to do is go to www.tigerdirect.com or www.newegg.com and either get theparts to build a new computer or buy one that can be upgraded as costs allow. Sorry for the bad news on this.

Mega Mouse

lol. ya was afraid so. Graphics wise, i cant push much faster, i have been looking at a couple options for a BFG x1600 that is AGP... surprsingly. Got overall good ratings, but runs a little hot. So i am still debating.

CPU can also be bummped up, but if i go that route, i might as well start building a new machine. Anywhoo, i guess most that have read this pretty much realize i have answered my own questions. LoL, i do that a lot.

cheers!

overclock that graphics card lol

Hey I'm curious what graphic settings and res do you put the game at? Also do you have AA and all that stuff on?

Buy a Nvidia 8800 GTX video card, and everything required to run it

Uh, that's just overkill.

Here are a few questions:

What games do you play?
What games do you WANT to play?
What is your budget (and in what currency)?

I can play prophecies fine even though the video card isn't supported, but I can't play the factions one I have. It keeps popping up with a serious error has occurred everytime I step out into the sun qua vale, in which I get disconnected at that point. It did a data repair but that didn't seem to help.

Also, urm..My cpu crashed once before, so the video card isn't supported by this hardrive because my cousin removed the one that came with the cpu, and put in a different one. Yea... Also, I'm using a Windows XP right now, Home Edition. It's Intel(R), Pentium(R), 4 CPU 1500MHz, 1.49 GHz, 512MB of RAM. Also, my C: has a capacity of 15.60 GB, and 5.39 GB Free space, which is 34% free space....could that be the problem? So would getting a new cpu like allow me to play factions with no problem, despite the whole data repair issue and what not?