[Henry Anthony]

Your ram and cpu sound fine. Autodesk has a list of certified hardware on their website. I would explore that information. Used to be that nvidia video cards were the only ones certified with ATI causing lots of problems. Not sure if that is still the case. I run a low end nvidia with no problems. XP Pro is also recommended. You can never have enough monitor space but with an 18", one can get by. Better would be a dual monitor solution. If you had an old 15" laying around, I would get a dual monitor capable video board. It's nice to keep tool and history palettes on a separate monitor. They eat up a lot of space. Or, just spring for a 30" wide screen ;o)