whats more important - cpu & ram or graphics card?

[gully]

hey all,

was just wondering about upgrading my PC (currently Pentium III 900, 512MB RAM, Radeon 7000)
But it doesnt work with games such as Mortal Kombat - there is a serious amount of slowdown there.

Would it be best to upgrade the cpu & ram for these types of games, or would a new graphics card be more beneficial?

cheers!

[JoyMonkey]

MAME doesn't take much advantage of graphics cards, all graphics work is pretty much handled by the CPU; so CPU & RAM all the way.

[Havok]

I would even say lean more heavily on the CPU. Anything after 512MB of RAM is not going to make much of a difference. (For MAME, at least.) If you plan on loading regular PC games, then I would bump that up to 1GB - RAM is fairly cheap...

http://www.pricewatch.com/

Is my favorite. Look at the Motherboard\CPU combos.

[menace]

I hate being the guy that says read the FAQ, but come on.....

[gully]

thanks guys
actually, i did read the FAQ and my machine does fall into the category of 'machine to use with mame' however i am still having problems running games like MK... so I was asking for further advice on this.

i am guessing however i still need a better cpu, which means ultimately new motherboard, RAM etc... sounds like more expense

[phines]

Don't throw out that motherboard yet.  You may be able to get a faster processor, which could only be $150???  I'd look at that route first, maybe ebay?  Check your manual on or motherboard or do some research on what you need.  I think some people forget that they could get some more speed out of there PC by just upgrading the CPU chip..

Good luck

[Havok]

Nahh - throw it out. For $150 you can get a new AMD Athlon 2700 with 256MB of ram, which will blow away what you've got now...

Everybody knows the computers are disposable, right?