Hi mbouncher

The recommend Ram for Bryce is at least 1 Gigabyte maybe you can add more ram to your motherboard that may make it faster but I can't say if its because of the ram because I had the same amount of problems with it and I have an Mac OSX Snow Leopard running at 3 Gigabytes of ram. I know a diagram for motherboards can help but judging by what you have said your computer is an older generation.

If you suspect it is the ram there may be a way to speed it up you computer.

For Windows

go to start and type in the search msconfig and then click on it and choose start up untick everything except your online security that will speed it up a bit. You can now buy netbooks with 1 gig of ram for about £299.99p or less but you want to go for something thats going to last more than 5 mins so maybe go for a samsung or toshiba netbook.

Sorry I can't really suggest anything more helpful I would stick to Bryce 5 or maybe Bryce 6.3 (if you have it)

Good Luck

Karl