I desperately hope that someone can help me with this. Often when I am working with Poser 4 (PC) it will just crash, freeze, hang completely. It is so severe that I can't even reboot my computer, but have to physically turn it off and on with the switch.

This happens at seemingly random points.. during loading of figures, posing and positioning, or sometimes rendering. The mouse just stops moving, and the entire computer becomes totally unresponsive. Does anyone have any idea what causes this? What can I do about it? Any and all help is greatly appreciated, thanks very much..
Cenozoite

Many possible reasons: If you don't have the 4.03 patch then you should go to Curious Labs' website and download it. Can you post your specs: cpu, ram, hard drive size, when you last defragged, and os. Does this happen while working in other apps?

When I upgraded to XP, it solved most if not all of the problems that you are having.

Hi, thanks very much for your replies. I did apply the patch long ago and am at Poser 4.03 .126 My specs are as follows: Pentium Celeron 500mHz 64MB RAM 8GB Hard Drive, 3 partitions, about 500MB free on each. 64MB Video Card Windows 98 Second Edition I'm not sure I've ever "defragged". I sort of know what that is, but I don't recall ever doing it. For a while I thought the problem was not enough free space on my C drive, but there is now between 300 and 500MB free on it and Poser still freezes. Thanks and I'll await further information.. Cenozoite

My guess is your ram and hd configuration. You should try to double your ram. Try defragging you might give yourself some wiggle room for now. Sorry, but a 8GB hd can't be recent or all that fast. It might need some help. Hope you plan to upgrade soon. V3 will not like you machine at all, I fear. Take care and luck, Q

I would say allot of your problum is your 64mb of ram. Heck just opening up windows has to eat 3/4 of what you have leaving you very little to work with in poser. Also 300- 500mb free isnt doing it much good especialy since you dont defrag at all. If you want to render you need all the ram you can get . Use Ctrl-alt-Delete and close everything but explorer before you boot up poser.

Okay, so my problems are basically my RAM and my hard drive size? That makes sense, but I just have a couple of follow-up questions: My 8GB hard drive can't be "all that fast" ? Hard drives don't have speeds, do they? Just storage size, right? It's the CPU that controls speed, not HD. Could any other factors be contributing? Does it matter whether my overall computer resolution is at 1024x768 or 800x600? Also, isn't 300MB free HD space more than any program could possibly use for swap space? Exactly how much is the maximum that it's useful to have free? I thought I was sitting pretty with this arrangement. Thanks again.. Cenozoite

"Pentium Celeron 500mHz 64MB RAM 8GB Hard Drive, 3 partitions, about 500MB free on each. 64MB Video Card Windows 98 Second Edition" Thats the problem.

The speed of a hard drive is determined by data transfer rate. So the faster the transfer rate the lesser the stress on you system. Your CPU speed is low to work in 3d, you OS is a possible limitation, as well. Your res should be ok with a 64mb vid card. You would probably get better choices with a larger screen and or a different OS. As far as the defrag. problem, you know your system better than I do. If your swap file is spread out throuugh out the drive, with a slow drive, you cannot expect efficiency. Try defragging for now. You should also stress test your system using a bench mark utility like Sandra or anything you can find as a free download on cnet. No good news, sorry. Q

for instance... I had a P3/700mhz, 256meg of ram...Win 98SE Poser 4 crashed consistently..... I upgraded to an AMD 1800+ 512meg of roam...win98SE...Poser4 still crashed...until I installed Winxp.... Now, even with this sytem, Poser is quite a resource hog...I use all of the 512meg plus have my virtual memory set at an additional 1024meg.... With Poser5 now, and Vic3, my system is chugging...

Yah what he said . Cenozoite a celeron isnt the best of cpu's to begin with. You can overclock them and make them faster but they run hot to begin with and probly not a good idea for you. Hard drives have buffers and all kinds of speed enhancers stuff and not all are created the same. You should have never split it up in my opinion but to late now. 300 isnt nothing for swap space . NEVER ever ever allocate your drives wiith no room to spare . If you have a cd burner back up a bunch of stuff and make some breathing room and then do regular defrags. Rams your first priority . You really need to read some of the read me files for your poser stuff most things comeing out ( except for that wonderfull mousey ) want a hell of allot of ram just to load and that leaves you nothing to render with .

The hanging and freezing used to happen to me all the time - but not so often now, since I read a post here from someone who suggested downloading 'End it All' and 'Rambooster' (both of which are free - I'd give you the URLS if I could remember them, but I found both bits of software easily with a google search on their names). I have more RAM than you, but it might still help - run End it All first, and then Rambooster, and see if it does any good. The difference it's made to me and what I can render without a crash (even hi-res textures, which I never could before!) is amazing! But you really do need more RAM... (not that I'm an expert in these things!)

Yah what he said too. Cenozoite End it all is a program to stop all your GUI's . Thoughs are programs like whats in your tray that run in the back ground and eat up resources . I am not sure about ramboster but there are ones that kind of take back used up ram and make it avalable again. One other note It not the same to use the restart option to reboot as all your ram does not become available unless you do whats called a cold start meaning you use the shut down option then wait a min or 2 then start back up. Normally this doesnt come in to play unless its a situation like yours and you need all the ram you can muster. Every little bit helps .

Well, gosh, I ran Poser 4 on a PII 450 with a 14 gig harddrive under Win98 for over two years and had no problems like that. I did have 256 megs of ram though. All the above is good general advice but your problem is most likely VERY specific. I would suspect a conflict with your video card if your mouse pointer is freezing. That's the sure sign of a hardware conflict somewhere. Defragging or upgrading to WinXP isn't going to fix it. You have a 64 meg video card? the card I'm sure is much newer than your machine (500 mz celeron). Is it AGP? Be sure the card is okay with your system and try out different drivers for it..sometimes newer drivers are worse than older ones, especially on older systems. I only had an 8meg nvidia zxv (older even than the TNT) and it worked fine with Poser 4...I could even use full tracking.

Of course, ram is considered 'hardware' so all the advice about ram boosters and stuff is good too!

Maybe what he said too, I dont know spit . Your talking apples and oranges. 64 ram on win 98 se is a hell of allot of difference than the 256 you had . But you do have a point video and mouse often have conflicts in the IO ports as well as network cards. SO it matters what order you install them in. I do work on older machines allot and tec / fix them but i am no expert. Trying different video drivers can be a real nightmare and you can go places you might have one hell of a time trying to fix and get it back to what it was before and will end up reinstalling windows. Cenozoite admitted to sort of knowing what defrag was. That wouldnt bode well for the possible disaster you are sugesting.

I would add that it also depends on what you're trying to do. A couple of P4 figures should be fine. Trying two or three Millenium fugires with high-res textures, props, etc. and you're going to be hitting resource limits. I'd ditch '98 and go to XP or 2000. Many people have had problems with '98. It doesn't handle memory as well, no matter how much you have. Upgrading the OS will pretty much require you to up the RAM as well. Go for 256MB minimum, more if you can afford it. Get a new hard drive. You can find 60GB drives for under $100 at places like TigerDirect. Install XP/200 on the new drive and you can still have '98 on the old one if you need it. If you can afford a new CPU/motherboard, go for it but I think the OS/memory/drive are more likely to fix the problems. Having said that, the 500MHz Celeron is a tad underpowered by today's standards. A 1+GHz Athlon or Pentium would get you a big speed boost across the board.

I still run Poser4 on a pentium1 200Mhz with 64Mb Ram & Win98se, it does crash sometimes but I can render the millenium dragon with it. I've tweaked every setting I could find to get the best performance out of it & I reckon you may need to do some on yours too :) Empty one of your partitions & use it for the swap file only clean out your temp files & internet cache regularly.

RAM is so cheap right now you really need to grab some. I got 256 for my daughter for $30, just check the ads. Now that DDR is being used the older RAM is dropping. My 400 used to handle Poser 4 just fine, but I had 128 of RAM. You also need to delete your temp files and delete your browser files. Had a guy trying to run Photoshop and couldn't, said he was running out of HD space. He had over 500 megs in his temp internet files alone. You should be able to go into Programs > Accessories and defrag your drive. Marque

lmckenzie said: "I'd ditch '98 and go to XP or 2000." I don't think that is a good idea...I have a feeling that there would be very little hardware compatibility with that machine. With the price of "off the shelf" machines today, it would be a lot less hassle to buy one of them, if that is all you are looking for. Replacing major bits of hardware can be a nightmare, especially if the person involved is not aware of Form Factors, Dual Channel IDE, Master/Slave, Jumpers etc. Cheers

You've never defragged a hard drive? You only have Windows 98 SE? You only have 64MB of RAM and an 8GB hard drive, divided into THREE partitions? Oh my God. How can you even begin to run Poser? Get a new computer, with a HUGE hard drive. Get Windows Xp. Learn how to maintain your computer. Sorry to sound harsh. But your problems are caused by the setup/system you have. You've already had enough pain. Now get the solution.

ram is the problem you can either get more ram or you can get a memory management program (they're a lot of them free..like rambooster) for those of you thinking its anything else, remember poser 4 came out YEARS ago..back when 32megs of ram was too much and 100 mhz processors were considered fast. I find it odd that those with computers now think that a 500 mhz processor isnt enuff for poser...hell, if I'd have had a 500 mhz processor at the time poser was released, I'd have been 'stylin'..lol I remember this because, I actually considered buying an sgi machine back then.they cost 13000 bux and they had a 500 mhz processor. I thought that would be just too cool. I use a 500 mhz processor and windows me now and I 3d like crazy with poser, bryce, and lotsa programs open at the same time. I do have 384 ram tho and rambooster. BT

You can check for a video conflict by (if I'm remembering right for 98) right-clicking on My Computer, selecting Properties, clicking on the second or third tab and there should be a video acceleration settings button which you click to bring up a dialogue with a slider - move it well left to turn off most or all of the acceleration and see if that helps.

Also, I've seen lots of people singing the praises of Partition Magic, which claims to be able to rearrange your partitions and redirect file references without having to reinstall everything - it might be worth using it to consolidate everything onto one or at most two logical drives.

Cheers said: "I have a feeling that there would be very little hardware compatibility with that machine." You're may be right Cheers, though his system is within Microsoft's Win2K specs (barely) except for the free drive space. I suspect that with the added memory and HD it would run though not fast but who knows. I agree that a new system would be the best bet and all put together is ideal for many people. Using components has advantages in terms of being able to select what you want and being confident about tearing into it if you like or have need to. As for the technical expertise, of course, if you have no idea about IDE channes, etc. don't do it. With a tech savvy friend, a good book, building up a system isn't impossibly hard if one has the inclination. I'd definitely recommend that a novice start out with one of the 'bare bones' kits. Partition Magic (or my preference Partition Commander) will work but there's not a lot of free space to work with. Also assuming they're around $40, double that and you have a new drive. As Brycetech says, I don't think the CPU speed is all that critical if you can live with the performance. Except for breathing room. Poser seems to be pretty tolerant of speed, witness the lack benefit the latest greatest video card will get your rendering, even in P5.

Windows 98 SEdition is pure crap for Poser. I still use this computer for the internet-Have 511Ram memory and Poser crashed every day serveal times. I have a new computer with windows pro 2000 and not one crash with poser4. Now that I have Poser off this 982nd-edition computer, No crashes.

I agree with the above posters- why do people still continue to try to run Poser (or anything) on Windows 98? In case you hadn't noticed (and I guess you haven't), Windows 98 is 4 years old!! How can you expect any modern program to work on it? Upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. If you "can't afford" to upgrade, then don't complain- just accept the fact that Poser won't work on your computer. It has been long-proven that Windows 98 and Poser 4 and the Millenium Figures (Vicky 2 or Mike 2) DO NOT work well together. And having only 64M of memory is just insane- memory prices have fallen to all-tme lows. Having 1G of memory costs, what, a few hundred dollars (if that)? Then again, Windows 98 probably may not "see" the entire 1G of memory.

Attached Link: http://www.outertech.com

Well, that certainly was an adamant condemnation of Windows 98 JohnRender. Jeeze, it's an OS, not a moral shortcoming. While a agree that an upgrade is probably the best solution, let's keep in mind that not everyone's financial circumstances are the same. While I'm fortunate enough to have won my copy of Windows 2000 in Microsoft's contest (and would have bought it anyway), I couldn't afford it at the moment. Likewise, I'd love to have 1GB of RAM instead of 256MB but that "few hundred dollars" is more than I can justify spending on computer stuff right now. In case you hadn't noticed, the economy's in the crapper and a lot of people are in a tight spot for a while. Let's offer helpful suggestions, not call them "insane" because their system isn't up to ideal specs. Cenozite, Cacheman is another memory manager I've heard '98 users here speak highly of. It's freeware and I think CL may even have a link to them on their site. Don't know if it'll help but certainly can't hurt to try it. Also, if it hasn't been mentioned, make sure you unload everything else possible when running Poser, anti-virus, download mangers, internet, any of those pesky little things that run in the background and consume memory. Needless to say, turn anti-virus etc. back on before going on the 'net or running/installing any new software or reading email. Good luck.

My point is that we keep getting these messages in the Forum- people asking how to get better performance with Pose, under Windows 98. (Makes me wonder why the Windows 95 users aren't asking the same question. And we haven't heard from any Windows 3.1 users recently. And why won't Poser 5 work on my System 8 Mac?) Time and again people post that Windows 98 and Poser do not work well together. Then, other people (like yourself) post messages about "memory managers" and such as a way to "patch" the situation. But, the fact is that the only real solution is to upgrade to a more modern OS, preferably one that is NT-based: either Windows 2000 or XP. The decision is not if the person should upgrade, but when. If the person can't run Poser 4 with Windows 98, can they run Poser 5? (Probably not.) What happens when Poser (or DAZ's "Studio") will only run on 2000 or XP? Does the person try to force it to work on 98 and then complain that they're getting bad performance? And let's look at "finances"- how much do you spend on stuff in the Marketplace? At DAZ? At other Poser stores? If you stopped buying stuff for a month, you could probably afford a new OS. Then again, if you don't make any Poser-related purchases, then forget I mentioned it.