How''s it goin''? Might be a dumb question, but here it goes. *smile* I have Lightwave 6, but it keeps freezing on my computer. I have a celeron 633, 256 ram and an nVidea Geforce 256 graphics card. Now, I don''t know whether it''s the power of my computer that is affecting the program, or if it should be running just fine. I''m just trying to work my way through the "Inside Lightwave 6" book, and I can''t even get past chapter 2 before my computer just freezes. Always happens when I try to use VIPER. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also, while I''m at it...if it is my computer''s power, do I need to go out there and get a new computer, or should I upgrade? Honestly, I really want to get into 3d animation, and it is so frustrating that I can''t get anywhere or learn anything before the computer conks out. Would a different application work better on my system? I''ve got both Poser and Studio Max 4, but I haven''t even touched them yet. What should I be learning or focusing on if I want to make a career out of doing animation and graphics for videogames or special effects in movies? I''ve learned a bit of visual basic, and I''m taking classes on C++, but how much do I need to know about languages if I''m just interested in graphics? I know there are a lot of questions here, but I''m just starting out. I''m so fascinated with the technology, and I want to learn it more than anything. I just don''t know if I can afford to buy a new computer in order to do it. Any advice would be great. I''d love to hear from anybody who has experience or knows where I''m coming from. Thanks for listening. *laugh*

Hi,

Well I am the oposite of you , I like coding better than graphics :o)

Well, I dont know about Lightwave, but I used to run 3d Studio on a 350 mhz AMD k-6, with a cheap video board and 128 RAM, I dont think your computer configuration is a bad one, maybe you have eighter a hardware related problem or a configuration problem, I remember you can run 3D Studio with software emulation, use OpenGL drivers or D3D, probably ligthwave does the same, if you are sure you have the latest drivers for your video board, and your system is running alright (you might want to chech if the fans inside the CPU are all working, I heard that the heat makes video boards crash) then I would recoment switching between modes to see which one works the best for you. (in 3d studio max, you had to run 3dstudio.exe -h to have the program ask you what drivers you want).

on the other hand, you should upgrade to Pentium or Athlon, Celerons are for home systems (checking mail, and playing a game once in a while, not game development, definitely not graphic development). Just my opinion.

HTH

Do you have an adequate power supply and all the latest patches for lightwave? I''d check those first.