So the PC I have is actually not a PC, but a iMac 24 inch with Snow Leopard on it. It has a windows partition that I'm running XP on, partitioned 100Gigs of HD space for it (terabyte HD)
So the question I have is, it's a great machine, has a good memory card, being able to run games is not the problem, I can run Oblivion full settings but the problem is, I get really low FPS. Now, this is more than likely a Ram issue right? I only have 2 gigs of memory, and since it's a 64 bit OS, I can utilize a lot more ram than that right?
Since you can upgrade the ram on my iMac, doing this would be a good idea right? I can put in 2 4gig DDR3 ram sticks in there and quadruple the ram, and I'd see a huge FPS increase in performance right?

I'm mostly lagging in games like Oblivion, where I look down and see all the grass and my machine just drops from like 40 fps to 5, and it becomes unplayable. nothing freezes, nor crashes, so it's not a video card issue, like I said the card isn't top of the line but it's not a bad one either.It can run high end textures no problem. It's just all that freaking grass and the view distance.
So basically, I'm asking, increasing my ram from 2 gigs to 8 gigs would give me a massive performance increase, right?

Also, I know there are a lot of mac haters on this forum, so please leave the unnecessary bias out of this? lets be mature.

Oblivion doesn't use more than 2GB of RAM, so don't expect any noticeable performance gain. What kind of graphic card is it that you have?

Nvidia Geforce 9400. But like I said, I don't lag, EVER at all until I'm out in the open and that grass just stops my computer to like 5 fps. When I turn all the grass down, I don't lag at all. So how is that not a ram issue?

Your GPU is more limiting then your amount of RAM. Like Freddo said, Oblivion will only see 2GB of RAM without a patch.

That's most definitely a graphic card issue. The grass is demanding to render, not demanding to keep in RAM.

So adding more ram wont help at ALL?
But I don't understand that. how can I have the textures turned to Ultra high when I can't even load some grass? That just doesn't make sense to me. When I'm in a dungeon or a cave, with Ultra High settings I lag none at all, like 30 fps. but then that grass outside and high view distance and my game just stops. I guess I just don't understand that.

1. Snow Leopard may be 64-bit, but your copy of XP more than likely isn't.

2. Your specific iMac (assuming my google-fu is good) only supports 2x2GB RAM configuration, so you can throw out your idea of add 2x4GB

3. You have a nVidia GeForce 9400M, not a nVidia GeForce 9400, iMacs are basically oversized laptops.

4. The reason you are having good performance is Oblivion is very CPU-heavy, and your CPU is carrying you through, but your Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz isn't enough to pull you out of the cycle-svcking grasses.

Basically, nothing you can do, your stuck, the iMac doesn't have the upgrade options you need to get truly good performance.


Because when you're outside you have a bajillion extra textures to render due to you putting it on ultra-high with a huge viewing distance. When inside you have not even close to the same amount of textures to render.

Very doubtful.


It's not just some grass, but lots of it. Indoor locations have relatively few objects and polygons to draw, so those places will obviously be rendered faster.

If the graphic card need to draw lots of things it will be slower than if it only need to draw a few things.

I see. I guess I'm pretty much stuck as is with this rig then.

Thanks a lot for your guys help and answers. One last question.
Is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229234 a good deal? It seems like it. Would it be able to handle games like Modded Morrowind (heavily modded morrowind) and Oblivion on max settings?
basically, would it shine where my computer fails?
it has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

I belive so, it's a very powerful computer.

Ok. could you explain to me (not very lengthy I just want like a few specifics) of what makes it a very powerful computer? I honestly just don't know a lot about PC's, I'm more of a mac tech savvy guy. So what about this rig makes it powerful?

Freddo may go into more detail, but basically it has a very fast CPU and a high-end GPU (graphics card) with plenty of RAM. Thus, excellent for gaming/everything.

For a pre-built tower, it's a very good price. Usually something like that pre-built would be $2000+

Well, then why is it so cheap? that makes me worried. If it's worth 2000+ why is it just over 1?

So a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 is a good GPU?

I know what you mean about the grass. I used to run Oblivion on a geforce 7800, and I could barely sneak by with everything on low.

It's cheap because it's on Newegg. Most of their products are factory direct which means that the retail mark ups aren't as high. Also Newegg, when they make a premade computer, seem to just simply combine the price of all the composite parts. Where as other companies charge that price with a few extra 100's thrown in. Newegg is just the way to go in my opinion.

I fixed the grass issue easily with the Low Poly Grass mod. Went from a huge performance loss at any grass draw distance to virtually no loss at max draw distance. Getting a better machine is still a good idea, of course. Just throwing that out there. Hell, you could even run Oldblivion if you were desperate enough for performance.

That is a very good desk top. The GTX 570 can max any game currently out and the CPU is also very good. The RAM is serious overkill for gaming as 4GB is enough for gaming. Unless you are doing serious modding and things like 3d modelling you won't utilize it fully anyway.

For the price it is a good system. It would normally prebuilt cost more however it doesn't come with Microsoft office which will cost an additional $229 so thats a good chunck of the price. Although do a bit of research and find out if you can build the computer yourself with all the same parts for less, you might find you save some money.

If you wanted to build it yourself and wanted to cut the cost more I would reduce the amount of RAM and get a smaller HDD 500gb is suitable for alot of people. Then again it depends on what other uses you have for it.


If this is true then Newegg could be the best online store for computers. There are companies 'not naming any names' that mark up their computers by hundreds and hundreds of dollers/pounds. My current PC would have cost me $350 if I had it prebuild by a custom website. Getting it done yourself can in most cases save hundreds on your bill

one reason it could be a good price is that it might have a cheap motherboard and PSU. I might have missed it, but I couldn't find any info as to what brand/model they are.

edit: looked on the company's actual website (which I should have done in the first place :sweat: ), looks like they don't use sub-par Mobos and PSUs in their other builds. Please ignore what I said above

No international shipping :sadvaultboy:

Same product: http://www.multitronic.fi/showprod.php?prod_id=EAH6570%2FDI%2F1GD3%28LP%29&b=1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121441&Tpk=EAH6570%2fDI%2f1GD3%28LP%29, 24.41 € difference (43.3%) (9.31 € w/o VAT or 16.5%)

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

You don't need to buy MS Office, if he has a mac, he might already have something like that..or he can use open office. Even then you don't need more than the student version which is only $130.


I know 500GB of RAM is suitable, but seeing as 1TB is barely any more money, I'd just go with 1TB.

Also OP if you're gonna go with a new PC, build one it's cheaper because you can downgrade products that aren't much worse or are the same as what's in that PC. Such as the processor. The new i5 2500k isn't much worse than that and would save you $60. You can downgrade the RAM to 4 or 8 saving $40-60. GPU is good and would run everything out right now and probably future wise too. Overall, if you build it yourself you can save probably $200-300 and still have a PC just as good as that one. For gaming, you don't need to overkill because I don't know of any game that needs more than 4GB of RAM to operate, if even that. The GPU is usually where it's at and the bottleneck, if you have that problem, with the CPU.

By the way Sub_Tonic (this is the OP btw i got hacked or something had to make a new account) that grass mod OMFGWTFBBQ you cannot even comprehend the homosixual love I have for you right now, that solved literally all FPS issues I have. I can even turn more settings on Ultra High now with that mod LOLASDJF;LJASDFJKL it's amazing.
So yeah, thanks. That one single mod the Low Poly Grass mod increased my FPS by near 30 in open fields, and I can't even tell a huge difference in the grass. SO I LUVS U