So, as you can tell from the other thread, my new computer is down for awhile, and I'm relying on an older (five years old, but I've upgraded the RAM and video card since then) computer for doing shit while I'm getting a replacement motherboard. However, it sucks to play newer games on it. Are there any tips and tricks for me to get better performance without buying anything new?

Specs:

GeForce 7600 GS (with updated drivers)
1 GB Ram
Athlon 64 2Ghz processor
Windows XP
 

What games are you trying to play, exactly?
 

Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead. I know they're not the most graphically complex games, but even at the very lowest setting they turn into slide shows.
 

increase your RAM. take some out of your broken computer and put it in this one.
 

if the bone is same in the old one as in the new one, which I doubt

Increasing RAM could help alot, also try to OC your GPU and CPU a little bit
 

New RAM is DDR2 800, old RAM is, um... DDR. Will it work?
 

.
No.
 

Damnit. Anyone know a good place on the intertubes on how to overclock?
 

type in youtube Athln X2 overclocking and to OC your GPU use Rivia Tuner
 

That 7600GS is not an AGP card is it? If it isn't why not use the videocard of your newer computer?

I wouldn't really start overclocking things at this point, the card is no gem, but should be good enough to run things properly at low settings. You sure the aa and af settings are at low or off in the driver panel and in the game? Put all the settings in the driver panel at as low as possible and see what it does. If nothing helps you can always pop in another stick of ram worth something around 10 buck nowadays.
 

Old card is AGP, new card is PCI-E. So that won't work.

And my computer (being a form factor case, which in retrospect wasn't a good idea) doesn't have a whole lot of room for expansion. Or airflow. I had to rip off the case cover so it can breath. And the mobo only has two RAM slots, so I couldn't just throw in a stick, I'd had to buy two new ones, and I'm pretty sure the RAm isn't the bottleneck in the system.