You likely cannot upgrade a machine 15 years old, as the socket type for the processor will be obsolete and impossible to source. New machine is the way to go.

Good GPU, plenty of RAM, plenty of storage space.

how can i do these things using UV maps ? can you explain further ?

here's an example for the edge wear and some sloppy blacksmith marks (more config is needed ofc, but you get the point).

how can i do these things using UV maps ? can you explain further ?

no i agree, those kinds of details i can probably add as a custom map layer (do you know of good resources which teach those; something most relevant to the look I'm going for). what i would use for procedural is mainly the wear and tear on edges, blacksmith marks etc.

Might be hard to put procedural scuff marks, burned arrow-holes, and sword slashes all over the outside. Would go with UV mapping.

i would say first look at a bunch of textures for reference . for wood use wave texture to make it look like a bunch of planks put together , and then stack a bunch of noise texture for base color do the same thing for roughness , use gradients to for example make corners darker or something , you can use voronoi texture also .btw do you know how to use the bump node ? , the bump node is very important when creating materials . here is my quick wood and metal texture :

of course there is a lot that can be done but doing every thing procedurally instead of just painting can be very time consuming

The money you’ll put into it could probably just buy you a newer machine that’d be better. Or you’ll end up with the computer of Theseus. If you upgrade the logic board to get newer CPU sockets, you’ll end up needing to do RAM, etc…

I’d recommend looking for a used system from 4-5 years ago, it’s probably good to go without any upgrades, and probably will cost the same or less than buying every part individually for the old system, especially with sky rocketing ram and drive costs right now.