If anyone is interested in what a crummy Wintel PC can do in real time, 
go to your nearest store and try out Nemesys Gigasampler. Absolutely
*superb* real time response and polyphony, and very high fidelity
sample transposition/interpolation. (there probably isn't much interpolation
going on in the Gigapiano, because most, if not all, keys have their own
samples, but I did a quick, but demanding test, and it passed with flying
colours).  Plus of course, the ability to use very
large sample sets. As a musician with a technical background,
I feel that this product is an incredible achievement. After trying it at a
friends
place, I made a bee-line to the store and bought it. (the first software
synth
I have ever bought, and really, the first industrial strength sampler, too).

This product is completely different to Csound. I'm just posting this here
because there must be a lot of people on this list who would be interested
in it, at least to some extent. 

Should we now somehow license Csound to Nemesys? Sure would be
a fantastic product, if it had some of Csound's capabilities. :) :)

For what it's worth, anyway.

Greg.
Sydney, AUSTRALIA