currently I am running XP home, and I was wondering to play games like team fortress 2, will it be worth upgrading 2 vista and finding a DX10 card, or will it still look good on DX9 and stick with what I already got

The compy: AMD ATHLON 3400+ 2.4ghz, 1GB RAM, 256mb 7600GC Nvidia GPU

currently I can run HL2, CSS, HL2:ep1, etc. on high and stuff, but shuld I upgrade to vista and DX10 for portal and TF2?

i was thinking of picking up F.E.A.R. sumtime soon and I was wondering if it would run well on my PC, i did the "can you run it" test thing and i got about halfway between "recomended" and "fastest", so does that mean i can pretty much run it on high graphics and other things without (much) lag? I am to assume that extraction point uses the same requirements (im getting the "Gold" edition, so they are both packaged together)

heres my compy

AMD Athlon 3400+ 2.4ghz

1GB RAM

256mb Nvidia 7600GS VC

Thanks!

1. "we reget coming to earth, we regret being alien bastards, and we sure as hell regret letting the core blowing out our raggdy-ass leet!" "HOO RAH!" -Sgt. Johnson, Halo 2.

2. "wake up, mr. freeman, wake up, and smell the, ashes" -gman, half-life 2.

3. "stop poking me, *BURP*" Orc Grunt, warcraft 2&3

4. "Tread lightly, and carry a big gun" Cpt. Gabriel Angelos, dawn of war.

5. "This is it baby, hold me." Sgt. Johnson, Halo 1.

and I'm sure there are plenty more, i just can't think of them this moment.

My internet doesn't like to work often, and it decide when it works or not, and as i usually play multiplayer games, but i need a single-player game to play when it (often) doesnt work.

Heres the "rig" (its not much, sue me.)

XP home 

amd athlon 2.4ghz 3400+

1GB RAM

256mb Nvidia 7600GS

plenty of HDD space for stuff.

thanks! (oh and BTW, i have half-life 1&2, so no need 2 mention it)