This topic now needs its own forun with a big banner saying 'VOTE HERE' Change to 5 if you're bold and audacious. Stick with 4 if it does what you need . I'm considering setting up my old comp to run 5 on. I'll make damn sure there aint any cables connecting it to my working machine though.

I've only ever had 5 and after I got the patches it works nicely now. I like it. It is fun. You can't get bored with all the different options such as the face room, the hair room etc. The setup room is good too. I'd get it if I was you but I would make sure I got the patches and installed them straight after installing 5.

I've got both and unless I need the features of 5, I work in 4 simply because 4 is faster all the way around.

If you have a powerful computer with at least 512 RAM, 1G is best, then I think Poser 5 within limits is pretty stable. I have 4 runtimes hooked up to it, one for V3, one for all my old stuff, one for new non V3 stuff and one for Natalia, Fairy, Koshini, Toony stuff. It takes a longer time to load at first than Poser 4. It takes a longer time to render. I think the renders are worth it. I don't use the Draft, I use Production Firefly for everything becuase Draft seems just as long and doesn't tell me anything much I want to know. If you are seriously challenged in patience-- I;'m not too good myself but I go to the kitchen get a snack,m that sort of thing-- you can hang with the speed. If you are able to save ona regular basis, then any random freezes won't bother you. After working on Poser 5 exclusively for several months, I've found that the freezes get less, the better it knows my set up, where the runtimes are, etc. I really haven't had a freeze the last three times I ran it-- and I always had freezes every long session with ProPack. So, for me it's a resonably stable program as long as you don't 0ush it. I dont do animations, I haven't payed with the face and clothing rooms yet. The Face room, the few times I went in, seemed less stable, but I don't need it. I need the expanded libraries and a good renderer and the possibilities of the Material room. Dynamic clothing would be nice, but I hate the idea of going through that every single time. So I guess htat's where my patience ends. Emily

Get 5!

P5 is great with textures. at first I worked more at my ProPack, but since I tried doing realistic skin in poser, only 5 can stand up to my demands. Yes, it is less stable and quite slower. That's the price I can pay for my renders looking better:) Anyway, I know it sounds cruel, but You have to try for Yourself. I don't pay much attention to Face Room and so on, but Materials are a great addition. Unless You use other programs to render Your scenes, consider P5.

Why do you think Iraq fell so fast? We sent Poser5 in and it crashed everything! Great stealth weapon--like the original Trojan Horse. IMO, stick with 4; give 5 to someone you don't like.

They locked your last two posts. Stop posting your fascist fucking agitprop in here. Love, Emanuel Goldstein

Back on topic... If you are gonna render in Poser, I say get Poser 5. The Material room alone is worth the upgrade. I think it works fine (after the patches) for most Minus a few very annoying bugs and broken features (koff hair collision...koff). If you are unlucky though it might end up being a doorstop... as the (Extremely vocal :D ) Minority will tell you... in every single thread with "P5" in it :p If ya got another app to render in. I think propack would be a better solution as it has several plugins for Max, Lightwave etc...) As it is I'm starting to wish I'd gone that route (Pro pack) I like Poser 5, but since I'm probably gonna end up doing all my rendering in Truespace, I'm not really going to be using any of the P5 exclusive features except perhaps a bit of Dynamic cloth.

Well, since it is apparent that the opinions of many of those who have tried to use Poser 5 are not welcomed here since we may disagree with the opinions and voices of the self-proclaimed and self-supposed "majority," I will offer my opinion to you privately if you wish to IM me. Afterall, God forbid if someone should be charged with trolling for offering an honest opinion after four months of testing and trying to get a program to work as advertised before deep-sixing the bugger. ;-) Take care, be well, keep flying. casamerica SUBTLE HINT*** SUBTLE HINTSUBTLE HINT<><><><> (A proud member of the "Extremely Vocal Minority" now using Poser 4 with Pro Pack, Vue d'Esprit, TrueSpace, Rhino, Cinema 4d and soon Lightwave exclusively for computer graphics.) SUBTLE HINTSUBTLE HINT***SUBTLE HINT<><><><>

Nice one, casamerica. But I'll risk it ;-) Nimesh, if you don't pose models yourself, i.e. you exclusively use 3rd party poses, and therefore the speed and non-linear non-responsiveness of the dials doesn't affect/concern you, then go for it. Otherwise load up P4 with several Mil Figures, clothes, esp. some ERC ones, and check the "feel" of the dials for response, overshoot, etc. That'll be what P5 will feel like on your system with just 1 Mil Figure with clothes. This crude analysis assumes that you have 512MB of real memory or better (more doesn't seem help with dials). Why now? If it's a deal that you are chasing, then it's a gamble you may need to take. Otherwise I'd wait a few more weeks (months) for SR3 to be released and tested by others first before slapping your money down. BTW, I'm in the EVM too! Have been since Day 1 + 3 (I was cheap and choose a ground carrier who - unfortuantely - DIDN'T lose mine).

Casa-chan... I feel your pain truly... but fact is of all the people who bought P5 only a fraction have had the radical freezeups etc.. That the Vocal minority have complained about. Do you have a right to complain? Hell yeah! If I was in your boat I'd be mightilly pissed, but I havn't had any major problems since day one. I have 256 megs of ram and a P4 1.9ghz Processor. The unpatched P5 was sluggish as has been described but after the first couple of patches it behaves pretty much exactly like P4 even with several mill figures. -_- An explaination? CL did a really poor job of optimizing P5 for various systems. I only took a jab at the "vocal minority" because you guys just pounce on any discussion of P5 with comments about it being a weapon of mass destruction etc... It just gets a bit old to those with reletively few probs... not to mention it's a rather counterproductive way of trying to effect change. :p

EVM Club? Hey, finally a club I can belong to! ;-)

As the latest rumor says SR3 is wandering out at the end of April, I'd wait a few weeks before deciding on P5. Let us EVMers be the guinea pigs. If we're happy after it's released, everyone should be happy. ;-)

Cheers!

I'm in a club! I'm in a club! Woo Hoo!

Actually ... I've had no problems with Poser5 ducks Don't know why I lucked out ... but I still use P4 for 90% of what I'm doing. There is exactly one thing that I use P5 for regularly at this point ... assigning material properties to v3 ...doing it piece by piece in p4 just kills me. So now I set one piece just right in p4, close it, open in p5, save the material and apply to everything else, then reopen in p4 and keep working. I haven't played with the cloth room, but the face room and hair room are interesting. I still prefer transmapped hair ... but I'm making a shaggy shetland pony who looks great (just don't ask how long to render, okay?) BTW keep the political stuff out of this forum please ... Lyrra

" but fact is of all the people who bought P5 only a fraction have had the radical freezeups etc.. That the Vocal minority have complained about" FACT? Only a fraction? Where are you getting your stats to back that up? If you go back to the point P5 was first released and start reading from there, you may think differently. I beleive many have fallen silent because they gave up on P5 and went back to 4, so you don't hear from them any more.

I only took a jab at the "vocal minority" because you guys just pounce on any discussion of P5 with comments about it being a weapon of mass destruction etc... It just gets a bit old to those with reletively few probs... not to mention it's a rather counterproductive way of trying to effect change. :p<<< The only time I "pounce" is when someone asks opinions as to whether they should buy. Then you can bet your g*****n house that I will try to save another poor sucker from paying out good money on a program and to a company that does not deserve their patronage. Even at $199 Poser 5 is not worth it IN MY OPINION. And I will give that opinion when someone asks members of the community whether Poser 5 should be bought. Now, once the fabled SR3 is released I will most likely keep my opinion to myself since I have no intention of placing it, Poser 5 or anything new from Curious Labs on my computer ever again. Poser 4 and Pro Pack were the last items I will ever purchase from Curious Labs. >>>If I was in your boat I'd be mightilly pissed... <<< Naw, I'm past that. After we fought with the sucker from September of 2002 through January of 2003 and then deep-sixed it, Poser faded into a shadowy history. The only time I get really pissed now is when we're told that our complaints are old and tiresome and we should quietly fade away so Curious Labs can land another sucker for several hundred dollars on a program that still does not function any better than a poor alpha. Then, yea, I get really pissed. Take care, be well, keep flying. casamerica

"FACT? Only a fraction? Where are you getting your stats to back that up? If you go back to the point P5 was first released and start reading from there, you may think differently." Your right I don't have any statistics. The statement was my interpretation of the number of people complaining about Major serious bugs (crashes and freezups etc...) Vs the complaints from people who just seemed to be too lazy to learn a new interface. And that includes all the posts from when P5 came out. "I beleive many have fallen silent because they gave up on P5 and went back to 4, so you don't hear from them any more" I admit there is deffinately an eliment of conjecture in my comment, but yours is pure conjecture. -_- My only problem with overblown comments about how horrible P5 is that it snowballs. I can't tell you how many times I've read cracks about how incredibly buggy and computer destroying etc... P5 is from people who have NEVER INSTALLED IT. and who routinely proclaim they never will. Why? because the dissprportionate bitching from the vocal minority has spread like wildfire. Why should I, or others who's P5 works well care? For one It damages sales of P5, which in turn makes CL's precarious financial position even worse, which means less money to pay code monkeys to fix the more wide spread bugs. Ironically... If you all hadn't done such a good job of bitching you might have a nicely functioning program by now. IMO. All of that being said... It's not exactly like I gave P5 a ringing endorsement. I basically said for anyone who has a better program to render in (and there is a way to get Poser models into it.) would be better off with Pro pack. For others, I think as long is the software doesn't hate your system it's worth the upgrade price. Full price? No way.

The statement was my interpretation of the number of people complaining about Major serious bugs (crashes and freezups etc...) Vs the complaints from people who just seemed to be too lazy to learn a new interface.<<< Lazy? JHFC! Are we still hearing that! Is that the best, the very best that can be thrown at the EVM? Let me see, Ive learned Bryce, Ive learned Vue, Ive learned Rhino, Ive learned TrueSpace, Ive learned Cinema 4d and Im about to embark on the learning of Lightwave. So, if I hear someone make the accusation that my problem with Poser 5 was because I was too lazy to learn another interface, or too lazy to go through the learning curve, I might just have to get a bit pissed off and resort to cyber-boogers, face-making and farting in their general direction. >>>It damages sales of P5, which in turn makes CL's precarious financial position even worse, <<< In its present state of stability, Poser 5 should not even be offered for sale. Whatever Curious Labs financial situation may be is a direct result of their own actions and their own failures. I think it is time that they grew up and took responsibility for it instead of letting their ever-shrinking fandom paint them as some sort of victim of some sort of conspiracy. The victims in the entire Poser 5 fiasco were those faithful and trusting members of Curious Labs customer base that bought Poser 5 believing and trusting what they had been told. I was one of them. I still shiver and wince at the smell of Vaseline. >>>Ironically... If you all hadn't done such a good job of bitching you might have a nicely functioning program by now. IMO.<<< Yep, and in my humble opinion that is a load of bulls**t. In my opinion, if people hadn't bitched like they did you most likely would not have gotten the "service releases" you did as quickly as you did! I'm pretty goddamn tired of hearing people blame those who simply wanted what they paid for to work as it was advertised get blamed for the damage done, in my opinion, by the betrayal and lies dished out by Curious Labs. Where I work, we tried Poser 5 in the same environment as Poser 4. We tried to use Poser 5 on actual projects for clients. Not a single project could be completed with Poser 5. Not one! Previously saved scenes would not reload, the system would suddenly reboot for no apparent reason without warning, animations would not render, models that render perfectly in Poser 4 would render with hideous artifacts in Poser 5 like they were suffering from leprosy, the system would suddenly freeze in the middle of renders for no apparent reason and only a hard reboot could bring the system back online, etc., etc., etc. This does not even consider the meandering lights and the completely and totally worthless Walk Designer. Hell, they didnt even bother to fix many of the bugs from Poser 4 in the built new from the ground up Poser 5. Whatever the fate of Poser and Curious Labs may be, it was designed and written by Curious Labs themselves. Take care, be well, keep flying. casamerica P.S. Do you think weve altered anything either of us believes in regard to Poser 5? Neither do I. ;-)

"Lazy? JHFC! Are we still hearing that! Is that the best, the very best that can be thrown at the EVM? Let me see, Ive learned Bryce, Ive learned Vue, Ive learned Rhino, Ive learned TrueSpace," Damn it that IS NOT what I said. -_- I did in no way imply that the people like you who have REAL SERIOUS PROBLEMS with P5 are like that. Just that a high volume of the early bitching about P5 was people like that. Even now it seems many people who have P5 (and have no problems with it) Use P4 because they aren't comfortible with learning the material room, or the cloth room etc... Not because of any Real bugs. (AND I REPEAT I BELIEVE YOU AND THE OTHERS WHO ARE AFLICTED HAVE REAL AWFUL STARSHIP TROOPERS SIZED BUGS.) No Cut down on the coffee... and keep your boogers to your self.

No Cut down on the coffee... and keep your boogers to your self.<<<

I would have thought with all that coffee you would be more concerned about the farts. 8-<

Take care, be well, keep flying.

casamerica