Another upgrade on a budget question

[oboe]

I run Win XP Home on a P4 2.8 (overclocked 20%) with 1 gig of RAM and a Radeon 9800 128Mb card.   I have to set the texture size to 512 or I get stutters and mini screen freezes when I play AH.  I get around 60-70 fps in clear skies, in heavy action my fps can drop into the 30s.

I need to use 1024 texture size when skinning, and switching back and forth takes alot of time.

I'm wondering how much of an improvement I could expect if I add another gig of RAM and upgrade to a 7600-series Nvidia card with 512Mb?   Will it improve my frame rate and allow me to run tex size 1024 with no stutters and freezes?

Anybody got experiences with a similar system and upgrade?

[715]

I have a stock P4 2.8GHz with 1.5GB RAM on XP Pro SP2.  I upgraded from a 9600XT 128MB (which is slower than your 9800) to a 7600Gt w 256MB.  I only run 512 textures.  With certain terrains, under certain view conditions, I got about a doubling of fps in AH.  Under other view conditions I got no improvement.  Stuttering and brief freezes have actually become slightly worse with the new card (from essentially none to a bit).  My upgrade was only marginally useful (but it was cheap at about $100).

I'm not sure this is relevant information considering your need for 1024 textures, but I thought I'd mention it.