Setup

     First of all you need a nice big screen. If all you can get is 
     640x256 high res then you can forget it, you'll be running out 
     of space in no time. 640x400 in NTSC mode is good, but better 
     with some overscan on top of that. A perfect display is 
     724x566 (pal maximum overscan). Of course if you're going to 
     use modes like that you'll also need a decent monitor that can 
     display these modes without flicker (DBLNTSC/DBLPal), or 
     have a flickerfixer handy, otherwise you'll end up with a 
     galloping migraine. If you've got a graphics card (you lucky 
     sod!) then you can forget everything I've just said =) You 
     wont need to use any more than 8 colours in your c4d 
     environment, because all the rendering/viewing etc is done on 
     external screens, so it should go reasonably fast.

     Next, you're going to need a decent processor and a fair chunk 
     of ram. 8mb min, 16mb is comfortable. Processor, 030/50 min. 
     040/40 is decent.

     Finally, setting up the software is a good idea too. 
     MagicFileRequester is a patch that makes the old clanky ASL 
     file requestors use a nice MUI interface. Cycletomenu is 
     DEFINETLY something you should use with Cinema4D, otherwise 
     you're going to get sore fingers clicking on cycle gadgets. 
     C2M usually comes with the Cinema4D package so that shouldnt 
     be such a big deal to get running. Lastly, if you're using a 
     68060 or 68040 processor, I'd recommend getting hold of 
     OxyPatcher, as it speeds up the operations MASSIVELY.