Hmmm....I would upgrade your vid card first. Athlon @ 1.4 gigs is a very capable CPU, but your memory is definitely on the short side....very short side. 256 megs minimum for WC3. You should try and pick up a cheap stick of pc133 off of FS/FT or Hot Deals.
As for GPU vs. CPU intensive, its a bit of both. WC3 requires a pretty hefty CPU b/c of all the calculations it has to make (its essentially D&D^1000) b/c of all the die-rolls and modifiers, but nothing a 1.4 gig Athlon can't handle. On the GPU side, it requires a nice vid card especially at higher resolutions with more of the eye-candy on.
I've had the game since legit Beta, and I really couldn't play it at anything other than 1600x1280x32 with max details. The game just doesn't look as good, b/c the character models are all boxy looking and aliased at lower resolutions. Also, with slower video cards and lower detail settings, you don't get all the nice spell effects and animations, you get a slide show...
Also, this is the first RTS game I've played where bad fps can seriously hinder your ability to play the game effectively. You simply can't micro in large battles if you can't get good framerate. I've played the game with a gf3 ti200, and since I upgraded to my ti4200 turbo, I've seen a SIGNIFICANT improvement in performance. Still running 1600x1280x32, but now I have no scroll hiccups and there isn't a stutter even with 6 90-food bloodlusted armies hacking away at each other
I think you'll see the biggest perf. gain by upgrading your vid card, and throwing in some more memory would be a bonus.
Chiz
Edit: PS, you'll know your CPU isn't the bottle-neck if you load into online games and you are one of the first that gets the "Green Light". I'm always first or second, with some people taking a minute or two longer. I'm on Azeroth (East) under Chiz-Falco if you have other ???'s.
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