I need to know whether I should invest in more RAM or a better video card

This is my current setup
Pentium 4 - 3.0 Ghz, 800 Mhz sidebus, with HT technology
128 MB NVidia GeForce 5200 - Overclocked by about 50 Mhz on each clock
512 MB RAM
80 GB hard drive

On this setup I get about 37 FPS in LFS (max graphics settings in-game)

Would my performance benifit more from, say, 512 MB more of RAM, or a new video card? Thanks.

I would go for atleast 1 gb of RAM, it will help you generally speaking for every use. Plus, 1 GB of ram although isn't all that much anymore, you can get it for fairly cheap.

Also, you can get some decent graphics cards for around $100 now.
All depends on how much money you are willing to spend.

Quote from XCNuse :

I would go for atleast 1 gb of RAM, it will help you generally speaking for every use. Plus, 1 GB of ram although isn't all that much anymore, you can get it for fairly cheap.

Also, you can get some decent graphics cards for around $100 now.
All depends on how much money you are willing to spend.

Which one would directly influence the frame rate of my games? That's all I care about lol .

1Gb of ram and a better vga card is all you need

Quote from BlackSheep720 :

Which one would directly influence the frame rate of my games? That's all I care about lol .

FPS is directly influenced by the gpu so if you only want more fps get a better card but more RAM will make everything smoother, loading times will be lower and overall your PC will feel faster so pretty much you will want both RAM and a better card. With 512 you can pretty much run almost any game at the moment but with some games will just have so looong loading times that they will make you cry, I know

just an example of what i would go for (in the uk):
http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... 367,4294960195,4294955846
and
http://www.dabs.com/productvie ... 137,377090000,12,42740000

Live rates at 2007.05.30 11:24:17 UTC
96.12 GBP = 189.981 USD
United Kingdom Pounds United States Dollars
1 GBP = 1.97650 USD 1 USD = 0.505945 GBP


but if you look harder you will be able to get better ram and maybe a lower price (in the usa)

Quote from Ziil :

FPS is directly influenced by the gpu so if you only want more fps get a better card but more RAM will make everything smoother, loading times will be lower and overall your PC will feel faster so pretty much you will want both RAM and a better card. With 512 you can pretty much run almost any game at the moment but with some games will just have so looong loading times that they will make you cry, I know

Actually, while that is true in most other games today, that is not really true in LFS. The CPU is what determines the minimum framerate in LFS, while the maximum and average framerates are more of a combination between the CPU and video card, and even then, I think the CPU plays a much larger part. Minimum framerate is what's really important, though.

LFS simply is not all that graphics intensive. However, it is extremely CPU intensive.

512MB ram is fine for LFS +XP unless you having many programs running background.The best is always to turn them off before playing any games including LFS.

1GB of ram would be really nice and you need to change the graphic card as well.What type of slot you have for your GPU?Is it AGP or PCI-E (please dont mix it with PCI slots)?

How much money you willing to spend?

Id definitley get the extra 512 of ram, but if your looking for a good AGP graphics card check this out http://www.elara.ie/products/r ... sp?productcode=MMEM310469

ordered this the other day, and since a PCIe card would need a new mobo and chip this card made a lot of sense.. lots of ram and quite fast and decently priced