Well, I was under the impression that win98 had problems actually utilizing more than a certain amount of RAM (wasn't it 128?) Once you reach that point, the rest is somewhat wasted. I had a 750 Mhz machine with 256 that behaved MUCH better after installing windows 2000. XP also should work, though it wastes a little more RAM than 2K does (you can turn most of that stuff off, but it is a little hard to fine) I upgraded to a whole new machine (2.4 ghz) and don't think the improvement was hugely valuable. Renders still take minutes (just a couple fewer). I can probably handle more figures at once before the interface bogs down, but most of what I've done since then doesn't seem too different than before. eric