I ordered lots of stuff last week, got many Errors, but it finally downloaded today. 

Yes, Infinite and xStream are 64 bit versions optimized for Windows XP64, all others flavors are x86.  

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/?page=chart here is the comparison chart, at the bottom are the specs of interest.

I am a painter on canvas, so I use Vue more for mock-up than anything else.  I do not need the big packages at the present, but do like to run the x64 OS for stability.  

I can say this with assurance, if you want either of the Vue x64 packages; get a minimum of 8 gigs of fast ram if you are going to do eco’s. 

As far as Vista goes, Ultimate is the best package for 3D, has backup software and a lot of extras the other Vista packages do not have; not cheap.  Choose your hardware and software carefully, as much is still not supported, maybe toward the end of this year. 

I can't speak for others, and except for the Poser problem, I have not had problems with any of the Vue versions or flavors with the exception of drivers when installed in Vista.  However, Vue 6 was optomized for Win XP, so not many have tried Vista.  

If you have the time, knowledge, and can setup the right hardware and software, I see no reason not to go with Vista x64. 

Well, I guess I almost have to eat my words. I loaded the procedural terrain Antarctica and it crashed Vue. Since I am not new at computers I began an in-depth diagnostics that would Make Microsoft envious. Okay, I am bragging a bit! 

When I installed Vue 6 I left the Vista x64 bit OS ver 6.0 video drivers installed, which are only OpenGL 1.1 compliant, and do not support SSE. Vue complained and asked me to use the Software rendering, which I refused. 

I have since found, Vista’s Nvidia 7600 GS drivers are not compatible with Vue when using OpenGL Hardware acceleration, software yes.

I am hesitant to install my old Win XP SP2 x64 Nvidia drivers in Vista, but said, “what the heck.” WELL, I got Vista to accept the NVidia drivers, ver 5.7 with SSE, 256m onboard memory, 256m shared system memory, and 2.1 OpenGl support. 

Vue 6 has stopped gripping about my video card, and the procedural terrains are not crashing under OpenGl Hardware Acceleration when rendering.

Hope this is of help to some.

I haven't tried any Poser objects. I am running Vista x64, with the retail Vue 6 build 289779 installed and have no issues.  Also use Carrara 5.1 and Vue has no import issues.  Tried to check for updates but was told I have the most current build and no updates are available.  It is running smooth and I have tried scenes with 5 million polygons without issue. 

I am not exactly sure what you mean? 

There are two types of PCI bus, the old fashion 16 and 32 bit, and the Newer PCIe (Express).

The older PCI buss is slower than AGP, and the newer PCI Express is twice as fast or faster than AGP.  None of these cards are interchangeable, so make sure your Video Card will fit the slot on the motherboard. 

The Biostar boards are okay, I have run a few and they held up pretty good as long as you do not overclock them.

Looking over that board again, I see that the mobo's onboard chipset is NVidia.  Usually it is better to add a Video Card that uses a similar chip set.  Maybe you might consider an NVidia Card as well.  Should be a 7800 or higher.

Looking over the specs; The MSI is an inexpensive board, but I have heard good things about the NEO version.  However, I agree you are maxing out this board so no future upgrade.

The CPU is okay. The memory is a bit slow but you can add 4 gigs. At least go for the highest speed 400 mhz or above. 

The board has everything you need, but you will have to upgrade to a new video card, a new ATI Radeon X1600 or higher should do.  Make sure you get one of the recommended video cards, even if you have to go somewhere else to buy it. 

You should be able to run Win XP x86 or x64.  I do no know about Vista, you would have to check the mobo guide to determine if this board is ACPI compliante with Vista, or it won't run Vista.

Have them so a pretest, you do not want a doa.

It is understandable why problems arise. You have three layers in a system: (this is very simplified, and it is far more complex)

1. The software layer which makes a request to the Operating system. The Software is the Guest of the System.
2. The Operating System, which controls and processes all of the software requests and then sends them on to the Hardware. The Operating System is the Boss.
3. The Hardware layer is the slave of the system, and does what it is told to do by the OS and just returns stuff back to the Operating System, or/and the Software.

Software is written based on the most current code, which has a lot of Libraries, and so on, to support all of the requests that must be sent to the OS and Hardware. Unfortunately all of this is changing from month to month. Think about it Microsoft adds new updates each month, and that is not just to the operating system but also to the SDK’s. New drivers must be written and old one’s made compatible with the new code, but sometimes they do not work and break a system. The Software gets caught in between all of these changes and must adapt, by writing new code that makes the software work.

My AMD won’t process MMX instructions according to the way Intel dictates, so some software packages that support MMX will not run on my computer. However, newer software versions will, since patches have been created to solve the problem.  

My supposition; So Vue puts out a beta based on the current code that supports the current OS. Someone says that does now work on my system, so Vue goes back and rewrites the code. Now they put out a new release and it breaks more systems. It happens because sometimes you cannot write enough code to make all systems work together at the same time and include the new changes. So you have to keep trying to patch the software until you can get everything working for everyone. Unfortunately that takes a lot of time.

All e-On can do is try to gather all of the information about all of the problems and different system configurations and keep writing code until they get it right. 

I am back to Vue 5 until all of this gets sorted out. 

Well, not sticking up for anyone, but when I used to work for a company, and we released our new Word Processor for Beta testing in house, after six months of hard work, there were 256 bugs, on the 17,000 computers tested.  We fixed all but 11 within three weeks.  Those 11 got shipped with the Word Processor, for which we put out a patch later.  

As a programmer you really never know what is going to break the software until it happens.  The real problem gets you when you patch something and then that patch breaks the system for others.  

Trust me when I say I burned out after four years and got out of that job.  No way would I want to be in e-On's shoes. 

More work but have you tried to use the Administrative Tools and search through Event Viewer.   

At the time a crash happens, look through all of the Logs in Application, Security, System and so on, and click on an event to find out what caused the crash.  This could tell you what module was causing the trouble and give e-On more info.

You may have the dreaded Memory Leak, where threads are not being processed, or purged correctly. 
Usually the only way to get out of this situation is to use Task Manager and Shut down the app.  If not, with the memory tied up in bad threads, your app will crash. 

Iloco

I am running Vista x64, and it is way different than Win 2000, or XP. It handles memory different, all kinds of new stuff that is not compatible with previous versions.

On the e-On site they tell me not to download any patches as they will not work with Vista. 

So I am between a rock and a hard place.  Only e-On knows what is going on.

They always send me mail late!  

So how it this version working for you?

They always seem to start fixing from the top and then down.

e-On just released a new build for Infinite, so maybe there will be a final or patch for the rest of the products later. 

Great, that is what I want to here!  
I got a lot of serial numbers and no shipping date yet.
Maybe tomorrow!