Help! I want to run Dragon Age...

You are REALLY pushing the Hard drive free space.  I don't know my ATI cards very well even though I own one, but I think yours is below the recommended specs.  Maybe a more qualified person can make it more clear on whether you can or not.

It's looks like you may need to upgrade your system if you want it to look spectacular.

System Requirements as listed in Impulse:

Minimum:

• OS: Windows XP with SP3 / Windows Vista with SP1
• Processor: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.0Ghz or greater
• Memory: 1.5 GB or more
• Graphics: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
• DirectX®: DirectX (November 2007)
• Hard Drive: 20 GB HD space
• Sound: Direct X Compatible Sound Card

Recommended:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or AMD Phenom II X3 Triple-Core 2.8 GHz or greater
• Memory: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
• Graphics: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater

* Impulse must be installed in order to download and update software.

You will need to do some serious upgrading to this machine to run Dragon Age... Given you say you don't know anything about computers I would recommend getting a new computer if you have the funds available. Check newegg.com, tigerdirect.com or microcenter.com for pricing. Your local best buy may also price match, etc.

Here is my reasoning for this.
1) Your cpu is already at the minimum for running this game (not good). However, you could upgrade the cpu which is easy on AMD boards.
2) Your ram doesn't meet minimum requirements as you need atleast 1.5 GB of RAM.
3) Your graphics card is most likely integrated (not good). You would need to upgrade to a better graphics card.
4) As stated by Tater, you hard drive is severly used up. It would not be a good idea to fill your harddrive 100%. You could of course un-install some programs to make room.

It's simply hard to recommend upgrading a computer like this when newer faster computers are available for fairly decent prices. If you are intent on upgrading you will at a minimum need to free the harddrive space, purchase more ram and upgrade the graphics card. Assuming you meet the minimum requirements listed you should be able to play the game. Good luck.

Minimum Requirements

Good points were made above. Another thing to consider is, if you purchase Dragon Age through Impulse, you will need much more free hard disk space to get it downloaded and installed as Impulse needs space to download the archive, extract it, and then install the game. Also, in general it is a good idea to have at least 15% free space available for general system health.

The cheapest way to get a new computer these days is if you have the cash to buy the parts and a decent computer shop in your town somewhere. I'm talking about a custom shop/small business, not Best Buy or Curium City. All you'll really need is a new motherboard, a processor chip, a new graphics card (most expensive part usually), and memory. A new Hard Drive isn't that expensive these days but you can always just use the one you have now (but you'll need to free up some space). If the DvD Drive on your current system is ok then have them put it in your new build. You can save a lot of money doing it this way and you can probably re-use a lot of the parts you have now.

There's also going the "package deal" route and getting a Dell or a Gateway or some other system like that. They do financing and monthly payments and if you know what parts you want and are willing to pay a little more you can go online or to Best Buy and custom build one. Usually you can even get them insured at the larger stores. If you do it this way though instead of buying the parts and having it put together for you at a smaller store you Will Be Overcharged. Smaller stores can often get their parts straight from a distributer of the manufacturer and get the same warranties only at wholesale prices. That way you don't get huge fee's tacked on by Del or Best Buy or any other middle men. The package deal companies though usually come with good customer support. Sometimes though their version of certain parts are less powerful then that same part you could buy off the shelf. Also you may have to send your whole computer back to a place across the country to get it fixed if something goes wrong.

We can tell from your post that you aren't too familiar with the hardware side of computers, but hey, that's ok. There's nothing wrong with that. We all had to start to learn somewhere. Honestly, it's not as daunting as it may seem at first and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to be able to piece together a decent system. Once you get this figured out you'll be able to save yourself a Lot of money. Buying the parts and putting them together yourself is even better then having a shop put it together for you because you save money on labor. Until you get to the point you Really know what you're doing though I don't recommend that for the average user. You can fry a hard drive just by touching it if you aren't properly grounded and static free. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with parts as well if they aren't properly installed. Not having a peripheral "seated" correctly on the motherboard can mess your day all up....trust me on that.

If you do your research though you could build a $3,500 Alienware system for about $2,000 and the only difference will be the "Alienware" sticker on the case. You just have to shop around and order a lot of parts from the manufacturer or a web-site. 

To add to the above, Here is an example of all the parts needed to build a good gaming PC. It's really not that hard to build if you are careful or know of a shop or person who has the experience. It is also more enjoyable to know it is something you put together yourself. It's really up to you to know whether this is a task you can take on yourself or not. In my opinion, the most difficult aspect of building your own is troubleshooting and replacing defective/dead components yourself. If you buy online you may also have to deal with paying for shipping of the RMA'd components.

Here's an article some may find useful for building gaming pc's: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2347620,00.asp

Here is what I recently built for my gaming pc:
Case: Cooler Master HAF 922 ($100)
MOBO: ASUS P7P55D Pro, Socket 1156 ($170)
CPU: i7 860 (Quad Core) ($230)
HD: Wester Digital 500 GB ($50)
PSU: Corsair 750w power supply ($120)
MEMORY: 4GB DDR3 1600 OCZ Platinum Low Voltage Dual Channel ($125)
VIDEO: BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC ($150)
CD/DVD: Samsung ($30)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit OEM, Systems Builder ($100)

Total Cost: $1075

These costs could be reduced by choosing different components (there really are a lot of different options). Here is an example after doing some quick searches online.

Case: Cooler Master Elite 341 ($30)
MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 Socket 1156 ($109)
CPU: i5 (Quad Core) ($150)
HD: Wester Digital 500 GB ($50)
PSU: OCZ StealthXstream 600 watt ($40)
MEMORY: 4GB DDR3 OCZ 1333 Low Voltage Dual Channel ($80)
VIDEO: EVGA GeForce 9800 GT ($100)
CD/DVD: Samsung ($30)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit OEM, Systems Builder ($100)

Total Cost: $689

Thanks Raven X and ZombiesRus5; it's always good to see additional info.

First of all; nVidia GPU's? No reason as it stands today - get a Radeon 5870 (High end)/4890 (Mid segment)/5750 (or 4850; Low-mid end)

Second; Samsung CD/DVD units have been totally rubbish as of lately (ask any computer technician about the SH-223Q - he/she'll most likely shiver out of discomfort), get an LG/Lite-on/Pioneer (standard) or a Plextor (often somewhat better).

Third; you could get a larger hard drive (up to 1.5TB has pretty good price/gb ratio, after that it gets damn more expensive) - you can never have too much hard drive space. (I've got 2.5 TB atm, and will definitely get another 1-2TB within a month)

Other than that - the above examples look pretty good, other important things to think about are:

• Good power supply (check for the 80plus symbol, 80plus->80plus silver->80plus gold - these mark the efficiency of the power supply) is essential, it's better to have margins when it comes to PSUs, as the components in the PSU will run cooler, and will therefore work better (if it has a high efficiency rating, of course).
• Warranties - usually the same, but as an example EVGA sometimes (common on their more expensive cards) has 120 months warranty, now that can be worth quite a lot.
• Memory voltages (really only important on Intel's core i5 and i7), due to those processors built-in memory controllers being somewhat in their infancy, they can only run DDR3 memories with a maximum recommended voltage (to not risk the CPU) of up to 1.65V, whereas AMD CPUs can push DDR3 modules up to ~1.9-2.0V or sometimes higher. It's important to check what the memory modules require, voltage-wise, to run optimal, and see if your motherboard+CPU combination works with it.
• Graphic card physical size - only important in the high-end segment, but if you're going there, be sure to get a case that surely can fit the card - good to have some margin here too.

Just some additional pointers to be aware of when buying a computer today - there surely are more, but those are the ones that first came to mind

As a side note, if you want to learn about computers, building your own from scratch is one of the greatest teachers.  There are plenty of good resources online for information on the do's/don'ts, and the sense of accomplishment when it's all together is fantastic.  I'm sure the posters above can attest to this.

Don't mention it, Always glad to help.

I couldn't agree more here.

For a graphics card get the ATI Radeon 5750 which can be had for $99 to $129 bucks.  5770 is around $150.  These are the low end of the latest ATI and even they blow away most Nvidia cards right now.  The pendulem is swinging back to ATI.  Plus with the 5000 series you have full DirectX 11 support with Windows 7 so you are ready to go with any new DirectX 10/11 games.

I have a 2 year old ATI 3870 and I'm running the game at 70 fps at 1440x900 on high with no AA.  I went down to 1280 x800 and now run it on very high with AA on and get a steady 50 fps.  Looks great.  All this on my 2 yr old Core 2 Duo 3.0 ghz with 2 gigs of RAM on XP.  A 5750 alone will blow away my frames so you don't need to spend a whole lot to get great frames unless you want 1600x1200 or higher.

Oh, I don't run my games at any higher resolution because I can't read the text with my old eyes.