my aforementioned p4 machine was also running win98 - i said "don't say you've got ME" because apparently it's worse than 98 despite being newer, same as Vista is worse than xp.
suggestions for a new machine... are you're building it yourself? my new beastie was built for me as a birthday present, so i can't remember all the exact details, but it's got a 64-bit intel quad, with win xp pro x64 edition. if i were you, i'd get a quad-core, even though anim8or doesn't take advantage of them properly yet, as it'd be good for other apps, eg. video editing, and i'd say look around and try to find a copy of xp professional. it may not look as pretty as vista, but it's a more stable platform, and you'll get a lot less grief over compatability issues. you can still find xp copies if you look in the right places, or so i'm told. dunno whether to say you want 32-bit or 64-bit - again, anim8or doesn't come in a 64-bit version, but the standard 32-bit programs still run fine on xp x64, and some higher-end stuff (like vid editing) will benefit from the 64-bit architecture. i've got 2gb ram, and two 250gb hdds. the big hard disks are great, as i can render uncompressed videos without worrying about running out of disk space
i'd definitely say to get at least the same size hdds as me. with the complexity of the anim8or work you're doing, i might say to get 4gb ram. apparently x64 will allow support for some stupid amount of ram (16 thousand terabytes or something daft like that), but 2gb is fine for me, for now.
that'll cost you, but if you want a really good machine, that's the sort of specs i'd say you should be looking at.
- colclough
