Hi again, gster I see what you mean now, I misunderstood re the graphics card. I know that it should use mainly the processor, but I think some features of the card are used. I could be wrong. Good news anyway. My mate gave me 2 gigs of good pc3200 ram (installed just now), a nvidia 7800 gt 256 mb, an opteron 175 dual core processor and also threw in an LG flatron 19 " widescreen monitor, all for free. I've ordered a new motherboard and fan and once I get those it'll be up and running. Not a cutting edge system but a HUGE upgrade from what I run just now. I was wondering - can I easily set up maya to use 2 monitors (one via vga one via dvi)? Would be nice to have viewports in one and hypershade and attribute editor in the other if possible. cheers, gubar