RAM upgrade - HELP PLEASE!!!

I've gradually realised I need to maybe get some more RAM (!). Have bought Half Life 2 6 months or so back and have given up 'playing' it - the frame rate is terrible (15 FPS on the stress test!).

My laptop specs are:
Intel Celeron 2600 MHz with XP Home edition (SP2)
256 Mb RAM
Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (64Mb) with Intel Extreme Graphics 3D Accelerator

I know I've got a severe disadvantage with only 64Mb integrated graphics (compared to separate graphics power) and I know that XP borrows a lot from the RAM - have got EVEREST running as I'm typing this and it's currently saying I've only 85 Mb free (65% utilization!), so I'm sure I'd benefit in some way from more RAM.

EVEREST is telling me that my 'Memory Bus properties' are:

Bus Type DDR SDRAM
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 133 MHz (DDR)

and that my 'Memory Slots' only list one slot:

DRAM Slot #1 256 MB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)

This is a stupid question but I guess from all this data that if I was going to upgrade my RAM I'd have to buy just the one stick (as only one slot listed) and it'd have to be type PC2700?

Just confused with all the other listings for Front Side Bus Properties and Chipset Bus Properties! Do I just ignore these? They list a lot of other different MHz properties, there's too many of 'em!

Also, does anyone think it's worth getting 512 Mb or go all out for 1Gb with my specs? I've read more RAM is not necessarily the best when I've got only 64 Mb of bottlenecked integrated graphics.

Please, please, can anyone give me any help/advise.

Cheers, ratpackman

 

If you're serious about gaming, no amount of RAM is going to help you. If you want to improve general system performance, more RAM will certainly help. I would never run XP with less than 512MB, so I'm impressed you've lasted this long. Since it's not going to be much of a gaming rig, I'd just get the 512 module if you're budget conscious.

 

Cheers for the reply - I use the net a lot and maintain a website but have realised after buying that it's not great for playing newer games.

The type of RAM I need: PC2700 DDR SDRAM - is this the right type? I know there are others with different bus speeds.

Regards

 

the bottleneck for your system is the (non-upgradeable) video card and the problem isn't the amount of RAM, it's the core. no amount of RAM will help with the gaming situation although i also wouldn't run XP without at least 512 like Brian said. you need a new notebook if you want to game.

 

Cheers for the advice, I'll get the RAM - Half Life 2 will have to stay on the shelf a while longer. Regards.

 

I installed 2 of these 512 mb A-Data PC2700 modules in my Fijitsu S6231 and have had great success.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211126

And you can't beat Newegg.....