> The fact that you most probably won't be using 3d graphics at the > same time as making music doesn't mean that you might not want them > for other multi-media purposes Sure. I'm guess I'm just lucky enough to own more than one machine. But if you want lots of polygons drawn quickly, you can probably get a complete Sony PS2 for the price of some of these graphics cards. Nvidia claims the hardware rendering on the Quadro FX 500 is programmable in a C-like language: http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=IO_20030521_4157 How you get the tools for this language, it doesn't say. I mentioned to a local computer builder (supplier of mail order systems) about my reluctance to get an Nvidia graphics card because of the driver issues. He said they have exactly the same problems mass-producing Windows machines because Nvidia don't give them any chipset details either. They have to use the Unified Driver Architecture one-size-fits-all driver and hope for the best. So it's not just a Linux problem. Cheers Daniel