i just got 'condemned' for the pc, and while it's not the latest game, it's still new enough to be taxing on my system. i have an athlon 64 3200 with 1 gig of pc3200 ddr ram and an 256mb nVidia 6600. the auto-detect settings have the game running fairly smooth, but the graphics are scaled back and the game gets bogged down when multiple enemies are attacking. i'm low on funds at the moment, so i'm wondering, will a better graphics card solve this, or do i probably need a full-scale upgrade (board and processor, etc) ?

EDIT: i also have a 19" widescreen, running at 1440x900 and games have to run at this resolution, there appears to be no lower widescreen resolution option

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processor id say, ram.

hmm, i would think just putting in another 1 gig stick of ram would sort it out, most games these days for smooth running should realy be used with 2 gigs of ram. your graphics card isnt great either but graphics cards hardly ever slow down games, i think your problem is down to your ram.

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thanks... i forgot to mention, i recently got a 19" widescreen, so i have to run games in 1440x900, they don't seem to have a lower widescreen resolution. i love the monitor, but it's caused me to play way less games! since i got the monitor, half life 2 still runs pretty good, but hitman blood money became really choppy. i think it's mostly the card because i have to run the games at highest resolution.

so my question is: would (adding) system RAM do anything for running the game at this high resolution, or is it all about the video card?

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It's the graphics card. Your Processor and RAM should be fine for the game. That card is just outdated, especially for playing this game at that high resolution, as this game has some very modern graphics

It'll look nice and be more fun anyways =)

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Jesus you can be guarrentted your games will run like shit with a resolution of 1440 x 900.

Even when i was using my widescreen monitor i wasn't putting games on that kind of resolution.

New ram is definitely a must. But just from your specs i would say you need to invest in a new barebones pc.

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You'd be surprised at how much a new graphics card can keep an outdated system running games well. I use a radeon x850 pro on an athlon xp 3000+ and 1GB of (crappy) memory and I can still keep the settings cranked on games like Oblivion, FEAR, Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft... not the newest games but still fairly taxing. And the graphics card is not even top of the line. The problem is that resolution. Just invest in a good graphics card, you won't be disappointed even if you do decide to change everything else out afterwards.

Memory is not necessarily a must, it depends on the game. Have you checked your memory usage while the game is being played? Using virtual memory?

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Yes, I believe the man is right.

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there's no lower widescreen resolution with my monitor/card, it seems to be 1440 or running it disproportioned. games look shitty if i run in a non-wide resolution. i wish there were some kind of software that would let me run my widescreen in a normal ratio (maybe with black bars on the sides, like the opposite of letterbox).

EDIT: i'll probably just hook up my old 17" CRT to the analog output until i can afford upgrades. thanks for the help.

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try 1240 x whatever.

More pixels = more processing needed.

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