LightWave system requirements
From LightWiki
LightWave goes very easy on your computer. Last year I spent some time supporting someone running LightWave 3D 8 on a PII, 400MHz with Windows 98, GeForce 2 and 128MB ram. LightWave ran slowly, but it did run. Here's my take on what's good to get if you are speccing up a machine - BeeVee 21:01, 9 May 2007 (CEST)
Windows
Processor: LightWave runs on both Intel and AMD x86-compatible processors and likes multi-core systems, like the Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad or AMD x2. LightWave comes with both 32 and 64-bit versions, so if you have the right OS, then you can use either. Although my example above only used a Pentium II, Windows XP requires a minimum of a Pentium3 1GHz, and you should probably go with that as a safe minimum.
Operating System: Windows. XP is the recommended choice, Pro if you are going to run a render farm. LightWave runs just fine on Vista too, there are just the usual UAC complaints from users and drivers are not very widespread yet, particularly for the 64-bit version.
Memory: Get as much as you can afford, but bear in mind that although many motherboards support up to 4GB, 32-bit operating systems can only support 2GB of it per application normally.
Graphics card: nVidia have the best OpenGL drivers at the moment and even a lowly games card will be powerful enough for LightWave. You can go for the professional Quadro cards if you choose, but they will not offer much of a performance increase for the price premium.
Hard drive space/type: Not very important for LightWave. You need to make sure you have enough space to install LightWave (around 200 MB these days), and still have room for your content and presets, but it's not a big deal, nor is the type of drive you choose.
Macintosh
Processor: LightWave is currently available as a CFM application, which means that it runs fine on PowerPC (G4 and G5) processors and is emulated under Rosetta for newer MacIntel machines. In addition, in August 2007 NewTek launched a Universal Binary version that will run fine (or even better) on both and have numerous Mac-specific improvements. One thing to bear in mind with the new Universal version is that plugins and compiled LScripts (.lsc) have to be compiled specifically for Universal, you can't run your existing CFM plugins in UB LightWave.
Operating System: You need to run a minimum of OS X 10.3 for LightWave (which is why G3 processors are not included in the list of compatible CPUs). Now that OS X 10.5 - Leopard - has come out in theory nearly all Macs running it are capable of running fully 64-bit applications. However, to do so, applications need to be compiled using the Cocoa development environment.
Memory: Get as much as you can afford, Macintoshes don't have the limitation that 32-bit versions of Window have about a limit of 2GB.
Graphics card: You don't have a lot of choice with a Mac - you pretty much get what's available whether nVidia or ATI. However, since Apple themselves write the drivers for the cards there isn't a lot of difference between these two main manufacturers.
Hard drive space/type: Same as for the PC: not very important for LightWave. You need to make sure you have enough space to install LightWave (around 200 MB these days), and still have room for your content and presets, but it's not a big deal, nor is the type of drive you choose.
