I have an old computer that I bought about 6 years ago for college.  It still runs great, but I haven't been playing anything other than flash games on it.  I think Star Wars: Empire at War is the last real computer game that I have tried running on this thing with success.  I want to stick a video card in it, but I am not sure what would be worth it and what would be overkill for a computer this old.

Here is the computer: http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/5022/5022nv.shtml

Quick link to details: http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/5022/5022sp3.shtml

The only upgrade from the original parts is that it now has four 1 GB sticks of memory instead of the original two sticks of 512 MB memory.

The current monitor on this computer is 17" and 1280 x 1024.  It is possible I will upgrade it at some point.

I am looking to be able to play Portal, which just crashes when the first portal opens right now.  I also have a friend that wants me to try out League of Legends with him, so I need to be able to play that too.

Any suggestions on what to put in this computer?

Hmm I know why portal doesnt run. Your Cpu is definetly enough your ram too maybe even the onboard gpu. But without dedicated gpu ram it wont work. I have portal easily running on my old notebook that has 1.8 ghz 1gb ram ati onboard but 32 mb dedicated vram. And I know for sure that it doesnt run properly on the same model without dedicated vram . You could put in a geforce 8800 gt with 512mb ram was legendary back in the day. Maybe1 gb ram for a few bucks too.

Should cost 100 dollar together. you should be able to run almost every game on minimum.

Good news is that you have 1 PICe 16x available. The bad news is that I have no idea if Pentium 4 and 1 gig are able to support Portal and LoL. On the other hand, if those are enough, then you can just buy a card for sub 100 to play those two specific games and you'd be good. The bad news to that is that you might need a better power supply, since the specs dont say what it is you have we can't say if it will be enough or not.

Ah just read you have 4gb ram instead of 1gb ? your power supply is the key but a graphicscard from 04 with 128mb vram should do the trick with portal atleast the source engine is very ressource friendly. I would go definetly for a higher end 05/06 card which should allow you to run alot of games.

I can run most of Valve's games on my Dell that's over 7 years old now. It's got a P4 3.0Ghz processor, 2GB of ram (upgraded from 1GB that it came with), and an ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB AGP card (originally it came with a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB card, which blew after 3 years), and it runs games like Portal, HL2 + EP1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, The only Valve game that it doesn't meet the minimum requirements is Portal 2, as they recommend having at least a 2.0Ghz dual core processor, though I never really tried running it on my system.

Since you have a PCI-E slot, you have alot of options... personally I'd recommend something in the Radeon HD 5000 or 6000 series with at least 512 MB of onboard ram. You can find most cards in the low end of each series like the 5450 or 6450 pretty modestly priced online these days, for instance a 6450 goes for as little as $50 on Amazon, and it's all you'll need to run most of Valves games and pretty much any game that doesn't require at least a dual core CPU to run.

This http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/5022/5022cl2.shtml seems to insinuate it is 300 W.  I will open up the case and check later though.

I upgraded to 4 GB of memory.  I'm not sure how good "Can you run it" is, but ii says that I meet all the recomended specs except for the video card.  The video card fails miserably of course.

Thanks for the other recommendations guys. I might have some more questions if I can't figure it out.

It is 300 W.  Any good way to know if the system will be able to handle a video card?

Anyone able to help?

It looks like I need to upgrade both the power supply and video card, but I am not sure what will work with this computer. I have never changed out anything more complicated than RAM before.

Its pretty easy. Builduing a PC is like Lego Advance. Power Supply everyone should work and VideoCards also.

You could buy a 500 Watt Power supply (cheap one I assume ?): Here some examples http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=500+watt+power+supply&x=0&y=20 ranging from 20-60. I personally would go for a 500 Watt.

Installing it is easy just loose the screws loose cables take out slide new one in screw it tight and put the cables in thats it. Here a better text: http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/Upgrade-Power-Supply-Guide.php

Installing Graphics card mechanically is simple only the Software side can be a bit annoying. Also maybe he will use the Integrated graphics instead of the graphics card so you have to turn it off in bios.

Take the 6450 with 1gb DDR3 it will work also has HDMI/DVI which is always good. It will give your PC a substantial boost. Graphics will look MUCH better then they do now. To make it simple for you I would take these components:

http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-PCI-Express-Graphics-100322L/dp/B004XLPJNK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1314683333&sr=8-2


and this:

http://www.amazon.com/Diablotek-500-Watt-Power-Supply-PSDA500/dp/B001P92AA8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1314684095&sr=8-1

Total 75 Dollar

For Installation of graphicscard watch this please: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9x097QRXeA

How to install Power Supply watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0udZ0Ky4Pk

Both things I listed work on your computer if you encounter problems while installing or are not sure about something there are already tons of threads out there that solved your problem just google it.