how much RAM can you put on your motherboard?

I'm trying to upgrade my pc for playing games and wondering how I should proceed.  I hear RAM is cheap nowadays so I'm thinking of starting there. 


Is there a limit to how much ram you can put on your motherboard?  Is there a  recommended amount you can put onyour motherboard?  What if you go over that limit?  Will it be bad or good?  I want to put 1gig of Ram in there, but I think I read once that my old motherboard can only handle 500MB or so, which is what it has right now.  What if I add more?  Will it be bad or will it help?  thanks, and yes I know this is a noobish question. 

Any recommendations for a graphics card that will work with a Socket 462/A type motherboard would also be appreciated.  Thanks

Why don't you come up with a name of your motherboard instead so there is a way to find information about it.
If you put more RAM on it than is possible because of limitations it either won't work or it will not be able to use the RAM

GIVE NAME. Then we will get the answer.

how much ram you can put on your board depends on the model of the board. look up your motherboard on it's manufacturer's website, and you should be able to find the max amount of RAM somewhere.

its old
Gigabyte Socket A Motherboard GA-7VAX

GA-7VAX supports 3gb of RAM, 3 slots DDR 333mhz.
Supports AGP8x at 1,5v so basically any nvidia AGP8x card.