Lag...Any Help Appreciated

[0101001]

I recently bought Medieval 2 thinking that if my out-of-date computer can run Rome without any problems it can surely run Medieval. That thought seems rather stupid to me now.

So my problem is that everything works fine except for the battles that go block by block even on the lowest possible settings with only one unit per side.

I have absolutely no idea about anything to do with computers , so I rely on the people who know a thing or two about computer hardware to help me in my time of need.

Here are the system details that I thought were necessary to show:

-Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, build 2006)
-Processor: AMD Athlon (tm) XP 1800+, ~1.5Ghz
-Memory: 512MB Ram
-Display Device: Radeon 9200 Series

I hope this is enough information for someone to help me figure out what changes need to be made to my computer before this game runs alright. I have a little over $100 now and I won't be earning any more money for about a month so I would like to know what is the most important for me to upgrade first or what will have the most effect? Or should I not even bother right now and wait till I can afford the whole thing?

Any help appreciated.

[Petavian Belgae]

As hard as it is :
Wait and buy a new pc
Upgrading your pc is ok but not for gaming.
If you real want not to wait i would say upgrade the mem to 1 Gb.
But i am not shure if you can play the game with that 1800 athlon.

[DrIstvaan]

I can double what Petavian Belgae said, and add that even if you upgrade to 1 GB of RAM, your CPU won't be able to handle it. Also, that Radeon 9200 series won't help with performance. You should upgrade all three elements you wrote about.

[0101001]

Well then can anyone suggest what I should buy and how much it will cost to get the best performance?