FPS on max settings poor with a half decent gaming machine?

[Jason_Prince2011]

Hello there, like many of us out there, i too play play some video games on the computer. Basically most MMO's, i've been playing for quite a while now but i have some major issues with my system.

I blew £330 approximately for this system back in July 2010 and had it since, i cannot play world of warcraft on even good settings (Recommended) without spiking my FPS to less than 20.. not to mention other MMO's which my computer struggles to run on max settings at a decent, playable FPS.

Ive recently pre-order Rift (MMO) and im currently playing the beta, however id like to be able to play games like this no problem at all on max settings.

Specs:

Operating System: Windows 7 - 64 Bit

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II x4 635 Processor 2.90 GHz

Motherboard: Asus M4N68T-M Motherboard and GEIL 2GB DDR3 1333 Memory

Hard Drive: Hitachi 1TB Deskstar 3.5" Hard Drive - SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - Retail box

Memory: 2048MB RAM

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250


(I play on a 32" (1360x768) LCD 720p TV)


I was thinking of upgrading my RAM from 2GB in one slot to 4GB Per slot making 8GB and purchasing a decent gaming graphics card AKA the Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950. Would this improve my comp and allow me to play MMO's such as WoW, DC Universe, Rift, Guildwars etc. at max settings at a decent, constant framerate? Or should i change the motherboard, processor or something to improve?

PS: I custom built this PC
PPS: I have around £300 to spend.

 

[hunter315]

MMOs are interesting in that the load on the system can change drastically very quickly, especially when there are people around. If you are all alone on the map its mostly GPU intensive, but once lots of other people are near by it will stress your CPU, memory, and network. 2GB of RAM isnt much these days, so a memory upgrade would definitely help especially with it being so cheap right now. The GTS 250 should have enough power to handle stuff on high at that resolution without an issue, so your problems are likely memory or CPU related, i would start with a memory upgrade, if that doesnt fix it you can try OCing your CPU a bit.

 

[Jason_Prince2011]

MMOs are interesting in that the load on the system can change drastically very quickly, especially when there are people around. If you are all alone on the map its mostly GPU intensive, but once lots of other people are near by it will stress your CPU, memory, and network. 2GB of RAM isnt much these days, so a memory upgrade would definitely help especially with it being so cheap right now. The GTS 250 should have enough power to handle stuff on high at that resolution without an issue, so your problems are likely memory or CPU related, i would start with a memory upgrade, if that doesnt fix it you can try OCing your CPU a bit.

Thanks alot and yes, two 4GB sticks cost £60 from www.crucial.co.uk insanely cheap, ill order em' tonight and see how that goes down

 

[Jason_Prince2011]

**www.crucial.com