Nope, 512 isn't enough RAM. I've known that 1 gig is about optimal in order to work with Poser. Unfortunately I didn't know that at the time I bought Poser, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I had my laptop before Poser. I initially tried using Poser on my desktop (384 MB SDRAM), and the most I could render was a draft of one figure, then I had to reboot. I couldn't do a production render at all, so I tried my laptop and had better success. When I upgrade I want the largest hard drive that there is, and the maximum amount of RAM that I can get too. I was taken to the cleaners in 2000, when I got my first computer. Man, the sales guy saw me coming. Gave me the cheapest and least amount of stuff for the maximum price ($2,000). One year later I dumped the tower on the desk of another company and told them to gut it and layed out a list of what I WANTED. It cost me an additional $1,700 for a new hard drive, processor and motherboard. That was 4 years ago. I'm more knowledgable now when it comes to the hardware and while I'm no computer expert, at least I know what I need vs a sales guy giving me a snow job in order to offload junk that they can't sell to anyone else. Whenever I do get another desktop, I will invest in a Dell. I'm very happy with my laptop and the support that I get from them. I won't ever buy locally again.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi