3ds Max® 2008 Bible

Appendix B. Installing and Configuring 3ds Max 2008

In This Appendix

• Choosing an operating system

• Understanding hardware requirements

• Installing 3ds Max 2008

• Authorizing the software

• Setting the display driver

Before you can enjoy all the great features in 3ds Max, you have to install the software and get your system configured properly. This appendix helps you do just that. After you're finished here, you're ready to go.

Choosing an Operating System

If you're purchasing a new computer to run 3ds Max and have the luxury of customizing your system, you can do several things to make life easier. One of your first decisions is what operating system to use to run Max. 3ds Max 2008 can run on both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

If you choose to run 3ds Max on Windows XP Professional, make sure that you have installed the latest Service Pack (which you can download for free from Microsoft's Web page at www.microsoft.com). Both operating systems enable you to run multiple copies of 3ds Max at the same time on a single machine. If you're running the 64-bit version of Max, then you need to be running a 64-bit operating system.

Note

You also can run Max on Windows XP Home without any trouble.

Also note that Windows 2000, NT, Windows 98, and Windows ME are not supported.

Hardware Requirements

To get good performance from 3ds Max, you need a fairly meaty machine. A good default system to use is a Pentium-IV or an AMD Athlon-based computer with 1GB or more of RAM (and 2GB of swap space) and a decent-sized ...