Originally Posted by Marius

Ah, I see.

Okay, well if you're looking for more realistic mock-ups then EWQL is definitely your best bet, but I would still be wary of the Kompakt Player version unless you're willing to shell out way more than $200 for the library itself, then about the same for the full version of Kontakt which you'll need to run the library. Not to mention extra for MIDI controller, at some point.

Keep in mind that PLAY is just a more efficient engine for the libraries, so if you can run the Kompakt version then you should definitely be able to run the PLAY. The reason they've amped up the required specs is partly as an advertising move - if they make people think they'll need more powerful computers to run the libraries, people will oblige and then when they get the new machines, they'll notice a "significant performance improvement" even though they would have noticed that anyway if they had kept their Kontakt versions and upgraded the hardware.

But anyway, at this point I still think EWQLSO Silver (PLAY Edition) is your more economically advantageous bet, and you have plenty of upgrade options from there when you are able to afford it.