I did a search on Free Bryce for Mac and got a bunch of hits. I don't know if any of them would work for you though. Since you have that spiffy new Mac, I'd wait for the nephew to come up with the Photoshop and concentrate on getting a great new PC for your adventure gaming.

No, none of these hits helped me at all. Why do they say "Free Bryce 5.5 for mac" in the listing but when you click on it it turns out to be false? This upsets me to no end!

Ahh well...I guess I'll just have to save up my money after getting that new PC...CTTOI, with Bryce 6 being only $100, I can get this in several of months after buying the new PC - put away $50 1 month, $50 the following month, and the third month, Bingo - I can buy Bryce 6 for mac! With the exp I have to gain by using Bryce 5.5 on my new PC, the wait will be worth it.

I absolutely agree. Use that Mac for what it is really good at!

There really nothing wrong with the configuration at all considering the price. It's more than adequate for gaming.

As Jenny stated, additional memory would be something to think about.

As to future proofing there's really no such thing.

Thanks all - now am waiting for my PC-savvy "Pennsylvania" nephew to get back to me regarding the email I sent him, as well as December so I can put another chunk of money away for this PC, and after I discuss it with my nephew then I'll ask Mom about how much I can spend on this new PC.

Did you folks know that I'll have a 500 GB Iomega Mini external hard drive hooked up to this new PC (I think it's formatted NTFS for XP - don't know if it'll work ok in Windows 7) and if the specs mentioned in my first post in this thread plus the 4 GB memory and the motherboard mentioned by Chaos would be adequate for this external hard drive plus all the other things I've mentioned that I'm going to be doing with this PC?

I don't think you need to worry about your external hard drive working. They usually work automatically on everything from a 5 or 6 year old computer to a brand new one, as long as you have XP or later.

I am wondering whether it would be better to have XP than Windows 7 -- *assuming* you want to play your old games on it as well as your new ones. How many of your older games require a 3D video card? Those might not work so well in emulation. The oldest adventure games should work in Virtual PC (or DOSBox) because they don't need a 3D video card -- so with the oldest games it wouldn't matter if you used XP or Windows 7. The later games which require a 3D card might work natively -- or they might not. Windows 7 is still a bit of an unknown regarding the bulk of older games.

Anyway, you might want to check the specs of your older games to see how many require a 3D video card -- and of those that do, check for information on whether they work on Windows 7. Draclvr and others have been testing Windows 7 and reporting results in ***this thread*** but you may have some that aren't listed there. For those you might need to do an Internet search to see what you can find.

Just read through the "Windows 7 and games" thread. It looks like people were having the most problem running older and even some XP games in Windows 7 64-bit, and a lot of other programs won't work in win 7 - so I'm setting my heart on 32-bit Windows XP. But how do I convince my PC-savvy nephew of this when he's the one who's been pushing me to get Windows 7 in this new PC? But then, he doesn't play games on a computer anymore now that he's 22, has a job, girlfriend, involved in Civil Air Patrol stuff (he's a captain).

Does anyone know if you can order a PC (tower only) without the OS from Newegg?

Tell him that your main reason for buying the computer is playing these old games you have -- and that you're concerned about backwards compatibility with Windows 7 because most of your games haven't been tested in Windows 7. Tell him you want to maximize your chances for playing as many of your old games as possible on your new computer.

You can always buy Windows 7 later, maybe a couple of years down the road if you want it. Or set up a dual boot with both Windows 7 and XP. But for now, XP better suits your needs.

Microsoft is providing critical security updates for XP until 2014 --> ***link***

I couldn't agree more, Jenny. Windows 7 will be an option for quite a while. And a dual boot option is always a possibility. For cruise02's specific needs, I'd go with the 32-bit XP and keep Windows 7 as an option for the future. Her nephew is a Mac guy first and not an adventure gamer second. But he did get her into that excellent Mac Book Pro.

I love my dual boot! Well, triple boot for now until my 32-bit Windows 7 RC expires.

Well, if I get this new PC from the EcollegePC site, the only misgivings I have is I won't be able to get that motherboard specified by Chaos, and it I order the PC from NewEgg, will I be able to get the tower only and Windows XP (or without the OS if XP isn't available)?

Does NewEgg put better quality hardware in the new PC's than does EcollegePC - I wonder?

I don't think NewEgg custom builds PC's (could be wrong though, I've never ordered a complete PC from them).

None the less, ordering a new rig is always a gamble. Configuring them with name brand parts doesn’t ensure they're the same as the boxed retail versions.

I won't mention names, but the OEM of my last purchase won’t be considered for quite some time. Although under the right circumstances I’d probably do it again (it was just a bad PC from the get go).

Newegg does not build custom PCs. Chaos was simply pointing you to some components you might consider if you were actually building it yourself.

The ecollege PC website just builds computers with components you might select yourself. If you are not comfortable with that, just go buy a brand name PC off the shelf.

Quite true Draclvr! Tiger Direct does custom build pc's, but to be honest, you could pretty much build one yourself for what they will charge you.. The main advantage to getting an "off the shelf" pc, is you get a system pretty much set up. The disadvantage is, they come with on board graphics & sound (no real problem for some : on board sound), & to play any games, you almost have to upgrade the video & power supply. Most games out there do not support on board graphics chipsets.

And you won't get XP with an off-the-shelf desktop computer. Just get the one from ecollege. It should be fine, and ecollegepc has much a better score at ***resellerratings.com*** than most name brand computers that you'd buy off the shelf.

I assume you're talking about my "Pennsylvania" nephew. He's the PC-savvy nephew; he's a "go out into the world and get involved" guy first, and not a adventure gamer second, and yep, he's the one who got me this MacBook Pro. I also have a "Michigan" nephew who's the mac-savvy nephew, and he's the one who's going to get me Photoshop.

EDIT - Just checked out that motherboard recommended by Chaos yesterday and I discovered it's an AMD motherboard - I kind of shy away from AMD (just me, I guess). Also, did some digging at EcollegePC on the "Customize" page and found that I can get an Asus motherboard. Will post the final specs/configuration for this new PC later today.