Welcome!
Your system is more than adequate.
Yes, a lot of the plug-ins were written for earlier versions of Hal and some might also work with your system and the latest version. The plugins I would recommend would be the AIML from cload and his modified VRFreeWill . See previous posting
http://www.ultrahal.com/community/index.php?topic=12731.0The latest offerings were those that benefit Hal the most. Some of the Character creations that are available should work nicely with any era of machine you choose but there is a caveat...the Haptek heads, full-body and torso characters might not perform as smoothly as you would desire.
In this case you should use a program called CAR.exe which stands for Core Affinity Resident. Basically, this short little program allows the user to set the number of active cores for the program like Hal, while it is running. With this, your Haptek characters will operate smoothly and without jerking or stopping.
If you're going to use the Speech Recognition feature, I'd suggest a decent noise cancelling microphone and a relatively quiet location (loud street traffic, horns, window air conditioners, fans, kids / pets, etc.). Remember to check your entry (what Hal is going to digest) BEFORE it does so. Garbage In Garbage Out. A lot of users prefer to simply type our entries to Hal in an effort to avoid the build-up of unwanted text entries. It's your choice.
Yes, I think some have tried Hal in a Virtual environment with some success. Maybe a check with OTCE2005 (a member here).
Good luck and I hope this helps a bit!
