Online games running slow. Processor Upgrade?

I have a power mac g4 800Mhz and my daughter likes playing online games like Disney online (cable internet). The computer runs great, however the children's online games run painfully slow compared to my new i-mac. Is this a processor issue? A graphics card issue? Humm. I don't know. Suggestions?

Thanks, Charlie

Hik and welcome.

CPU upgrades are not too cheap. The 800MHz is showing its age and probably has a 32MB nVidia GeForce 2 graphics card. Your avatar does not say where you are but if in the US suggest looking for say a G4 1.25/1.42GHz DP which will come with an ATI Radeon 9000 PRO 64/128MB video card.

I upgraded my G4 almost as far as possible for my son and it's not nearly as fast as a modern system. Much works well, but flash based games show the computer's age (My Son loves disney's website as well). It is doable, but not your best cost option. There are three components that can cause your issue:

Processor
Video Card
Memory

Any (or all) of those three can be the culpret. Problem is, upgrading a G4 is a bit of a money pit. Here is a cost analysys I posted a while back:


$269.95 USD - Sonnet 1.8GHz Proc upgrade - New
$100.00 USD - ATI Radeon 8500 AGP Mac Edition (EBay)
$180.00 USD - 2GB PC100 (4x512MB) (Ebay)
________________________________________________
$549.95 USD - Total (Does not include the price of Leopard)

$599 USD - Brand new Mac-Mini with Leopard

From a cost and performance standpoint, you'd be much better off buying a Mac Mini then upgrading a G4.

Now your system has different video card and memory options but ultimatly the upgrade path will be similar and it isn't going to be much different then what I'm running.

-MikeM