with the upcoming Upgrade in graphics, how screwed am I?

[Anodizer]

If I may make a suggestion...  Don't buy anything NIB (new in the box) for AGP as you'll probably get raped unless you're getting some kind of crazy close-out deal..
For some reason, retailers think they can sell obsolete hard-ware at a premium.......?

Sounds like you have an XPS Generation 2... 
Things I'm noticing right off the bat: how is your RAM set-up?  You have dual-channel capability..  With 1.5 gigs, you may not be taking
advantage of that..  It's best to have stuff in matched pairs..  The ideal set up for you would be to have 2X1gig of PC4000 (DDR 500).
You can find this type of performance RAM in many different flavors for pretty cheap..  Saw some of those Crucial Ballistix 2x1gig sales
for around $50.00.  You can probably find cheaper..  I think you're pretty maxed out processor-wise..  You'd get better results from
overclocking (if you can) than you would with another processor (depending on whether you have socket 478 or 775).

As for Video Cards: what ever you do, don't listen to Krusty
Nvidia as well as ATI have several viable choices...
Nvidia offers the 7950GT but it's frequently problematic and I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole.
After that, there's the 7800GT, 7800GS. 
The 7600GT, 6800GT or 6800 GS are all acceptable but won't touch the performance of a the higher-end 7 series cards.
Case in point, I play with a 6800Ultra AGP on my garage system.  I run everything maxed out with 8xAA at 1680x1050.
I keep V-sync on and it stays at a constant 59fps.  Never dips...

As far as ATI is concerned, I think the HD3850 w/512 is actually the fastest AGP video card available..
You can find these for under $100.00 and I think this should be the card you get as it will
absolutely outperform anything Nvidia has to offer in the AGP realm..
Without a doubt, this should be your choice for video card based on cost, performance and logic.

Live long and prosper

[TequilaChaser]

flyingelk, below is what you posted in the results thread:

Ok Here goes
ATI 9800 xt AGP 256 Ati Tool tray only Driver 4.12
P-4 3.4 system Ram 1.5 Gig

res 1680x1050 FR 13-14
windows XP Home SP 3

are you using the high res textures pack? and 1024 texture size?  with this card?

if you dropped your resolution down ( ex.....1280 x 1024 or similar ) and dropped back to say 512 meg texture size.I bet you would see a tremendous increase in fps over your listed ---->  res 1680x1050 FR 13-14

and also what Anodizer mentions about the 1.5 gig vs 2 gig ( or hck drop back to 1 gig so you can get the dual channel benefit might help....

I would go with the 3850 Ati vid card if I was going to upgrade to a newer card.......

Skuzzy mentioned your card would be "taxed" to try and run it at full or higher detail and higher texture size or using the high res texture pak...

but lowering them as I have mentioned, you are not going to give up a whole lot, and might even get better gameplay out of what you already have currently...

YMMV...but these are my thoughts

[TheflyingElk]

Thanks Guys I really appeciate the input, I will try the Tweaks mentioned, my son plays some other applications on this box but AH is all I play. I will see if the Budget with allow card up grade or  I may get the new Memory set up ,Yes Anodizer was correct the system is XPS Gen 2 system

[MrRiplEy[H]]

You're about 65% screwed. 

[Easyscor]

You should use Catalyst 4.12 drivers with the 9800 cards.  If you run the ATI Catalyst Control Center, you might have problems as it chews up about 15% to 20% of your video card's performance all by itself.  On your older card, that could be very problematic.

...

I cannot stress this hard enough.  Installing the ATI Catalyst Control Center is absolutely the worst thing you can do to your computers video performance.

Skuzzy, what should DXDIAG report for the driver, if 4.12 is installed?

Before I uninstalled my video drivers, it reported this:

Main Driver: ati2dvag.dll
Version: 6.14.0010.6601
Date: 2/21/2006
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys

After uninstalling, and running Driver Cleaner, I reinstalled what is universally said to be catalyst 4.12,
and DXDIAG reported the following change:

Version: 6.14.0010.6497
Date: 11/30/2004 20:12:50

Am I doing something wrong? When I run gtester, I still don't see the water. 

[TequilaChaser]

Am I doing something wrong? When I run gtester, I still don't see the water. 

Pyro posted in one of those (2) sticky threads that the Water effect either quit or stopped working and that he was taking it back down or reverting back to gtester instead of gtester1(gtester 2 )......this might be why you don't see it.......then again.it very well could be your card........ or the driver itself for your card....... have you tryed using  ATI TOOL TRAY?   ( or  even CCC, although you will take a big performance hit,  if you tried these and turn up some effects it might let you see the water although your fps will be extremely lower.also turn vsync off to help you obtain a higher fps for the time being maybe? ..........just throwing something out there for ya.that might stick <grin>  )



good luck

[moot]

Thanks Skuzzy.