Defossilizing My PC

So, my PC sucked for gaming. I bought it back in 2007 from Best Buy, paying the extra $40 for a memory upgrade(2gb woot), and a bigger LCD monitor(17 inches woot). Back then, all I played was Final Fantasy XI and Ragnarok Online; any crappy PC could run these low-tech games. It wasn't until I tried to install FFXIV upon release that I realized:
"Hey, I don't think my computer can handle these new games."
I have grown accustomed to playing PC games on the lowest settings. I really do not mind the jaggies and blurred textures on my screen. Dragon Nest and Vindictus really told me that I had some work to do. Even on the lowest settings; even with in-game modifications removing lag-inducing visuals, I still couldn't run the games any higher than 13FPS. For the longest time, I thought that FPS only affected visuals. Thanks to League of Legends and dozens of missed kills with Leblanc, I discorved that my severely low FPS also gave me input lag in games. In Dragon Nest, I couldn't time my dodges to avoid huge attacks and fire effects would absolutely kill my computer. In FFXI, scrolling through menus took milliseconds longer than other players, so my White Mage felt slow.

What was I working with? According to Speccy:
Vista 32 bit
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+
2.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @301MHz
Gateway MCP61SM2MA (socket AM2)
128MB GeForce 6100 nForce 205

That is
- 2 1GB sticks of RAM, well below today's standards.
- An AMD dual-core processor that is from 2006.
- Integrated graphics with only 128MB of virtual memory? I don't even think games go that low anymore.
- A stock power supply with 300 maximum Watts.
- A stock cooling fan that has my CPU at 67ºC with League of Legends running on max settings.

As you can see, there was a lot of work to do. With the holidays behind us, I was about to make a few upgrades to improve my gameplay. Money was a little tight, and I didn't need anything extravagant. I am used to playing on minimal settings, and I often still do, even with my upgrades:

What a mess. The stock case had random metal tabs everywhere that required pliers to move. I'd imagine they are there to keep the factory pieces in line and keep out larger, better hardware. A little bit of hammering was done to break some pins from the case. I also had to move my HDD to the secondary slot in order to fit in that ultra-long graphics card. I was afraid that I would need to drill holes for my PSU, but ATX models all have the same screw layout. With these 2 items alone, I have double the Watt capacity and a three generation jump in graphics processing. As I said before, I don't care to run things at their highest settings; I just want an FPS increase.

 

Before

After

However, it does look dang nice on those high settings. Who knew there were flowers on the Spring map!?

Dragon Nest is just as good, though I will only play that game on low settings with lag-reducing mods. Since I am a tanking Paladin, being able to block on command has improved my survivability tenfold. The new nests, Manticore and Apocalypse, can't kill me now that I can actually respond to their attacks! It was a $230( I could have spent less than this) investment, but it is already proving to be well worth it. The real proof will come from FFXIV v2.0 and Tera. If I can run those reliably, I will be one happy man.

For the rest of the upgrades to my PC, I will probably go in this order:
1) Cooling Unit
2) Tower Case
3) x2 2GB RAM (of 4GB depending on the deals I find)
4) CPU+Motherboard
5) HDD (My PS3 has a larger hard drive than my PC)