if youre computer can only take up to 256 megs of ram, then no - i doubt you are going to see anything in the way of a marked improvement on functioning, especially considering what programs you run on your comp.

RAM is basically how much "STUFF" your computer can hold at any given time. So, with 256 megs of "STUFF", your computer will only be able to hold 256 megs of information at a time. You generally want to have MORE ram than you typically use. So, if I'm usually running at 256 megs, getting 374, or even 512, would make things run VERY smoothly for me.

I have 640 megs of ram, and at any given time I'm using about 350 megs of it. Games like Battlefield and MOH run FINE with that amount of memory since it has ALOT of leg room as far as RAM is concerned, and it can dump all its STUFF (information) on the computer and know it can be handled at once.