Right now I have 2 windows based computers. The first one is my Vaio laptop that is my little monster. The other one is my compaq presario. I want to work with both computers using VD, Sibelius and Kompakt. My Presario has 384 MB of RAM, with a 120 GB Hard Drive. My idea is to run Kompakt (with VD and other sound libraries) from the presario and Sibelius from the laptop, and network the two together--yada yada yada. I basically want to turn my Presario into a dedicated sampling system, and continue to be able to use Sibelius from the laptop. Would this be an OK setup to do this? And is my presario powerful enough to keep up? Or should i just go buy a Mac G5 and be done with it? I really can't afford one right now--but possibly by the end of the summer. In the meantime, I was hoping that my congiguration above would suffice. Any and all suggestions to this would be greatly appreciated.

Chris - you're idea should work just fine. I'd definitely recommend you load up the Presario with as much RAM as you can afford. 384 won't get you too far if you're planning on using it as a slave sample machine. It's also important that your hard drive in that machine be fast enough (at least 7200rpm). If you can, you might consider adding a second internal hard drive to store your samples. It's not mandatory, but could make things more efficient. What kind of processor is in the Presario? You should be fine with a P3 or P4, but I've heard that Celeron's have a hard time keeping up...

thanks jim-the processor is an AMD atholon. I know 384 MBRAM isn't that much, but do you think it will do for the time being? I'm really not doing lots of "serious stuff" right now. just some percussion scores for a few shows. i'm really considering making the switch to Mac this summer, so i really don't want to spend a lot on upgrading the presario. BTW--the 120gig HD in the presario is 7200 RPM and is empty as of yet.

Chris - You'd probably be able to get things running with only 384mb of RAM, but with such limited memory, it won't be long until you max out the system, and you'll be limited on how many instruments you can load into one session. With RAM being so inexpensive these days, i'd almost opt to beef that machine up as much as you can, and do exactly what you were suggesting, using it as a dedicated sampler.

Kontakt/Kompakt (for the time being) run more reliably on windows, so since you already have the machine, you might be close to your dream setup already. Plus, but keeping the PC, you'd still have the option to use Gigastudio (which is a windows-only app) if you wanted. Of course, that program comes with a hefty pricetag...