Need help deciding what to do about my laptop

[jDSX]

I got a old 2010 Dell M5030 laptop that I want to either upgrade the OS or if I should stay with win7 thing is I have no clue if I can handle windows 8 and last I checked 8.1 doesn't support my old GPU so I am kinda asking what my option are also I do play older games (KOTOR, fallout, baldurs gate) mostly console ports to many emulators.

here are the specs
AMD Athlon II dual core @2.3 ghz (I believe it is AMD K10 or 12 not sure MO)
4GB of RAM (can add more RAM up to 8gb) 3.8gb usable
ATI Radeon HD 4250 mobility (1gb of shared vram 256mb of dedicate memory)
Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit

I know it's pretty dated and bad but what as far as options go for updating the OS am I looking at? This is my only laptop right now and want to give it a fresh look or something new can I get some help with options on what to do with it from here?

 

[Gamemaster1379]

I wouldn't fix what isn't broken. Windows 8 may give you a marginal performance boost, but I don't think it's going to make an impact of what you want. If anything, the OS switch only opens up a window for potential mishaps, giving you more headaches than before.

All in all, you really need to consider buying a new machine for any "higher level" gaming.

 

[jDSX]

Yeah I'm not really into gaming on a computer I just watch movies and need something to surf the web on and the occasional gaming here and there. Should I grab Mac or linux? or are those not going to run well on it?

 

[matpower]

Well, your laptop is better than my laptop
Anyway, Hackintosh probably won't be worth the trouble, specially because you got an AMD CPU. Linux is a good option and it should run better than Windows(specially with a lightweight DE like XFCE, MATE or LXDE), but occasional gaming can be an issue(Even with Steam, you will need Wine/PlayOnLinux for some games like Fallout for example), so you may want to dual boot or check if all of your games work with Steam and Wine.
I don't know how good you are with Linux, so I will recommend Linux Mint XFCE if you want to check it out. You can check DistroWatch for others alternatives.

You can also "trim" your Windows install, replace your apps with lightweight ones, disable background apps, etc if you don't feel confortable enough with stopping using Windows as your daily driver or if you don't want to learn how Linux works.