What are the minimum system requirements for home music production?

And why hold they changed over the last 7 years? I'm wondering, because I enjoy a 1.5GHZ Compaq Deskpro

running Windows 98SE with 256MB PC800 RIMMBUS(?).

It's the maximum amount of RAM that the system will hold

(I hold no idea why).

What are the minimum system requirements for home music production?

YIKES, Windows 98 have a maximum usable RAM size. If you have a 1.5GHz mechanism with 256MB or more RAM, you shoulld be using a tangible 32bit operating system like Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Once you upgrade your software, you will be capable of expand your RAM to the maximum of the computer system, or 4GB.



Home music? Like mixing music... Cool Edit Pro is still COOL. But certainly near are many more software packages.



MIDI? Oh man, Band-in-a-Box is still pretty cool, but near is a TON of MIDI programs out there.



Even CakeWalk is still cool.



If you are doing DJ work, in that are hundreds of different software packages.



Good luck and Happy Computing!
You are looking to do studio work? or DJ mixing? or just some misc stuff. For studio work similar to protools, you are looking for something with at most minuscule 2 gigs of memory. I would suggest DDR2. RDRAM or Rambus is usually only 16 bit memory beside speeds up to 1066MHz. DDR2 is up to 1066MHz with around 128 bit or more. A 2 GHz processor would be ok... more speed the better. Intel Dual core or quad core. AMD X2 64 bit dual core or better. the Why is simple. you can mix more tracks very soon than before. and most signals are completely digital. Analog it be not necessary to enjoy the details.