I figure Poser will be my most computer draining software. I would like suggestions about system configuration (but let's not get really crazy - I need enough $$ left over to buy Poser 6). Athlon vs Pentium 4? 1 gig RAM or 2 gig RAM? Is there much difference? 128 Video Card vs 256 Video Card? SLI with double video cards linked via dual slots? AGP vs PCI express? I greatly appreciate evryone's input.

Athlon. Cheaper, faster, better.
1 gig will do ya, but there's a huge difference between 1 and 2 gigs. Other than the blazingly obvious more RAM that you can do more stuff with.
128 meg video card is more than enough for Poser's little appetite. 256 will get you into better gaming, not better Posering.
SLI won't help you with Poser I don't think.
AGP, unless of course you're looking beyond Poser (gaming again)
If you're looking for power, then obviously you will want to go with the Athlon and 2 gigs RAM. 2x256 meg videocards on a PCI Express. SLI all the way with that (hence the 2). Then you'll be able to run EverQuest II in almost all it's glory.

Message edited on: 03/31/2005 20:59

Get fast hard drives and think thru configuration of them. :::: og ::::

For the present, the video subsystem of your computer has next to nothing to do with poser; the only qualifications to that are 1) it takes CPU cycles to run your video subsystem, so on-board video is a no-no 2) displaying your graphics afterwards obviously needs a video card to be involved somewhere. Operating System: Windows 2000 Professional if you are going with a AMD CPU; Windows XP is to Windows 2000 what Windows ME was to Windows 98se: a prettied up interface that adds nothing except some bugs and higher CPU usage. If you are going for a Intel Hyperthreading CPU, windows 2000 doesn't support hyperthreading; neither does poser, so you won't really see any advantages unless you really like to, for instance, run a web server on the same machine you are running poser on; I would still suggest getting a dual processor AMD setup and Win2k if thats a concern. Win2k-XP can't actually use more than a gig of ram effectively. If you want to blow money on something that will actually boost your performance; I would suggest either a IDE-SATA RAID-5 system (just barely workable) or fast SCSI RAID-5 system; you will have no worries about hard drive crashes and your stuff will just work noticeably faster. MCSE since 2000, in case you are wondering.

Get a TON of memory! It will make working in Poser much smoother.

Thanks everyone.