Hardware Need advice with cost-effective upgrading

Sono

cripple piss
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Because I never really learned about 3D rendering, I decided that I want to learn OpenGL. But there are 2 problems:
1) my graphics cards have bad performance, and
2) they only support ogl1.2 and 2.1

Also, I can't play newer games with my cousin, like GTA4, or even "simple" games like Minecraft. It barely reaches 7fps at lowest with Optifine and with fastcraft :cry:
So I need to somehow upgrade my rig.

I have a few computers that could be "recycled" :
  • HP Compaq dc5750 small form factor (my main computer)
    • CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4000+
    • Board: idk, but it has an AMD chipset
    • GPU: on-board ATI Radeon XPress 1550/200M
    • RAM: unknown 2x1G <800Mhz + GEIL Black Dragon 800Mhz (with epic glowing red leds :O courtesy of my cousin) 2x2G dual-channel DDR2
    • PSU: idk, some propertiary 230W HP
    • Disk: an old no-name 80G (corrupted) + 250G WD Blue, both SATA
    • "external" floppy drive
  • that black box with 2 blue strips
    • CPU: Intel Pentium something 64bit
    • Board: ASUS P5KPL-AM SE
    • GPU
    • RAM: CSX 2G 800Mhz + Kingmax 1G 800Mhz, DDR2
    • PSU: micase SR400 (combined load 200W, max output 400W)
    • Disk
      • some crappy and faulty samsung 160G SATA
      • Western Digital Caviar WD400 40G ATA [2004 MAY 08] (from my old computer that's not on the picture)
        • CPU: Intel Celeron 899Mhz, overclocked to 1033Mhz
        • Board: unknown
        • GPU: Nvidia Gforce 2
        • RAM: 512M unknown
        • PSU: unknown broken 250W
        • The floppy drive was taken out of this computer (that's on top of my main computer)
  • HP Compaq nc4200
    • CPU: Pentium M (mobility) 2.4Ghz?
    • GPU: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900/915GM
    • RAM: unknown 512M (504M + 8M video)
    • Disk: unknown propertiary 60G with S.M.A.R.T. technology (which is annoying because it renders the drive as faulty)
  • Compaq Contura 4/25cx
    • CPU: Intel i486? 25Mhz, 16bit
    • GPU: none? :rofl2: there's no VESA mode, that's for sure
    • RAM: 4M
    • Disk: a whopping ~200Megabytes :P
    • OS: German DOS with Hungarian Windows 3.1

So basically I want to recycle the above computers, so I could build one that is good enough for programming (or playing Minecraft with better than ~7fps...).
The problems I have with the above stuff is that I can't easily exchange parts. If I could use the GTS 640 in my main computer, I wouln't need to recycle my computer collection. But because 1) it doesn't fit in, 2) the PSU is too weak, and 3) I can't just swap power supplies, so I may need to do some trickery I don't have idea about.
Basiclly I just want to play a bit newer games, like GTA4, or even Minecraft (at least with 40fps, just be please higher than ~7fps) :P

So any ideas? I want to recycle as much stuff as possible before buying anything new, because I can't spend that much money to buy more than 2 new decent-quality components.
 

raystriker

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How are you using a 2gb module with a 1gb module in the Pentium pc? Also, give me a day or two to work something out for you :D
 

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