I have a celeron 2500 processor, windows XP, 128meg ram, and an intel onboard shared graphics 3d chipset. Manual says that it can share up to 64mb ram. Does this mean that its comparable to a 64mbit graphics card (suspect the answer will be no!). Also, how much additional ram would I need to add to allow this chipset to work at full capacity ? PC suits my needs ok, but my kids are getting interested in all sorts of games. Thanks in advance for any help/advice given.

Shared memory means just that, it shares with main ram. Most of the time, and this depends on bios as well, the shared means the video gets 64 and the system get 64 out of 128. For optimum performance of XP 512meg is ideal, 256 minimum (After the sharing calculation) The last time I used a dedicated video system that "Shared" with main ram it didnt share it a bit. It took 4 meg and kept it so that out of 32, I had 28 for my OS and other programs. That was a while ago, but I do not think the system has really changed that much.

When it comes to games, the best way to go is a card that has its own memory onboard. It will still share memory with the system, but it will have its own pool for the textures and other renderings needed.