Need help upgrading

[JERFit]

Well, ok, I need help upgrading my computer video card and RAM, although, my priority is my video card.

I am currently runing on a, >_>, <_<, NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64... , and 256 MB of RAM. I have a pretty old motherboard and I'm pretty sure it only has an AGP slot in it, but I'm not sure.

I use my computer mainly for random online chat sessions, and reading up on news, I'm also running on 56k so I'm not gonna do much online anyway, and for gaming. I'm not planning on anything really graphics intensive, the most intensive would probably be Age of Empires 3, and thats a big maybe, most likely though for the next few months I'll only be using it for Civilization IV.
I'm planning on getting at least 512 MB of RAM, hopefully 2 512s for 1024.

Anyways I'm mostly looking for recommendations on Video Cards, because I've never really bought one before and have no idea what's good. If you have recommendations on the RAM too, though, it would be really helpful.

Oh and by the way, I'm running on a really tight budget, the most I'll be able to spend would be about $200, maybe $300 if my parents will let me borrow money, but thats a big maybe, for both the card and memory.
Any suggestions?

Edit: Also, I'm not going to do much overclocking, because I'm not exactly sure how, and I don't want to mess up anything on my computer, so for now overclockability wont be an issue. I'm not sure if it matters, but I don't know what kind of motherboard I have, but I do know that I have an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.51 Ghz processor.
I just want reccomndantions for Video Cards, because I'm not sure what to get.

 

[Lord_Exodia]

Get a Geforce FX 5500AGP. It requires a 2.0 agp slot and since u have an athlon xp (palomino core) you have that. It's probably the best less than $100.00 videocard you can buy. As far as ram I'm not sure if you are using ddr or sdram. Many motherboards from back in the palomino days took either or, some rare ones took both, (but not at the same time). If you can find out I would suggest getting 2 sticks on 512MB but you gotta do some shopping to get 2 sticks for less than $100.00. Hopefully your parents come through with that loan.. Go to www.belarc.com and then click free downloads then click on belarc advisor. Install and run that and many times it will tell you the mainboard manufacturer and model # if you get that info please let me know and I'll dig deeper.

Lord Exodia

 

[Hot Sauce]

You're only using your comp for chatting and a bit of gaming, I don't think you need to invest a lot of money into upgrading.

 

[JERFit]

Eh, after a few days of researching, and looking at the games that I want to be getting withing the year, I've decided that in the end it isn't worth it to just upgrade this rig, so I'll probably end up saving for a few months and just building a new rig altogether. But thanks anyways.

Also I'll probably still get the 5500FX and a 512 stick of RAM, (so thanks anyways) and it should make a pretty nifty Christmas present to my 7 year old borther don't you think?