In games like The Sims 2, or Half Life 2, or most games that are fairly (ok, an understatement) advanced - is more RAM going to reduce loading times? Or would a better graphics card do that?

yes, RAM reduce loading time. A gamer MUST have at least 1GB of RAM

I don't know about the graphic cards, which I suppose to give you better graphics, but the more RAM you have, the faster the loading time. A fast processor will help too, no? The big three for gaming.

yeah,
a good GC give u great picture an graphics
More ram means faster loading
A powerful processor means faster gameplay

Faster processors, faster-spinning hard drives, hard drives with more cache on board, a nicely unfragmented hard drive and more RAM.

Disabling some of the background running applications will speed things up, the cheap way. Try this site: http://www.blackviper.com/

SATA HDD has more advantage than an IDE one

Would the RAM make things smoother?

Oh yes, definitely, more RAM would reduce the loading times significantly.

It makes a whole lot difference, ecspcially in HL2.

what would happen if someone has 2gb or RAM?

Erm...faster?

What would happen? Faster loading time in games. Faster application runnings...
Your question was actually answered by the title thread.

And remember to do periodic defragmentations of you HardDisk... you will be supprised how much faster your program loads and works...

But dont use the built-in defragmenter unless yo have Norton defrag, coz its not as efficient as those of Norton ones.

Don't put too much RAM, until you have a processor that can handle huge amounts of data.

Windows ME can't handle too much RAM. It'll screw up and become slower instead.

Where to get Norton Defrag?Well,too much RAM can slow your PC down,cos like AiRBOOM said,some versions of Windows just cant support the ammount of RAm you are using.Read one of the PCGM issues in the Dave Science section at the end of every mag (before te makeover) at the bottom of the page.Quite interesting.

Not only the OS, the processor. Mind my words.

Erm,anyone knows where to get the Norton defrag?

this is gonna go OT..get diskkeeper9.0...the best defragmenting tool there is..

And where do I get THAT?Ok,back to the topic,defrag,faster RPM HDD and more RAM should do the job,unless the game is coded badly and wont run properly...

ur gonna have to either buy legally or u can buy the u-know-what version...

Yeah . And ramember to uninstall programs that you dont use and clean your reg . Thats all.

i personally use System Mechanic to keep my system in tip top condition
love the registry cleaner included

No matter what ya system is, a hd with tons of fragment file will 100% slow-down the perfomance of that machine. So, defrag once in a month. Here's some personal tips:

1. Shut-down virtual memory and ststem restore.
2. Boot to safe-mode.
3. Defrag and wait.

Took me 2 hours on my 40GB HD to complete the process.

yeah norton speeddisk is fast as hell, it is included in norton systemworks 2005, get the ori one or the you know what...

i also have norton system doctor running in the background which shows my disk frag percentage, wanna know how many percent fragmented before i have to defrag?