I've been wanting to play Sim City 4, but the specs on my system are a tad low - it requires 32MB video ram & 500MHz CPU, I have a B&W Power Mac w/450MHz G3.

After reviewing my budget, I decided that while a shiny G5 would be oh-so-nice, it just isn't going to be in the cards for this year. However, I decided a minor upgrade here and there would be OK.

I went to Fry's and picked up a 32MB Radeon 7000 PCI (no AGP in this machine) to replace the 16MB Rage. Also picked up Sim City 4. I hit up ATI's site and downloaded an update for the 10.3's built in driver. installed it and shut down, then swapped out the video card and everything booted up just fine. While i don't have any performance tests, I did notice that games like Active Lancer and Burning Monkey Solitaire 3 run smoother than before.

The only other thing I'd really like to do at this time is iChat AV so I can video conference with my parents in Mexico. The specs call for at least 600MHz G3, or any G4. I've read up on overclocking, but don't think pushing the 450 to 600 will work, so my next upgrade will be the CPU. I'll probably do that in a couple months.