Waited all day for the UPS guy to show up. He finally did about 5:45pm. Ripped box from his hands and headed for my computer...Started the install. Had to eat dinner (sit at table with rest of family). Check computer... Still not done installing. Eat seconds - check again still not done. By now I am getting a bit worried. The install is just crawling! Its taking up to 15 minutes per FILE to install. Decide to abort install and try again. Computer locked up, so have to pull power to get it to reboot. Look at CD to make sure no dirt. Find smudge that will not buff out. Start install again, this time just Typical install, not full as I did first time. Chase 5-year-old down and dunk her in tub. Run back and forth checking install - still just crawling along... Now 8:00 - read bedtime story, tuck daughter in bed and now can finally sit in front of computer and say "What the %^&* is going on???" Abort second try and again computer is not happy and have to pull power to get it to stop. Run virus scan, check hard drive defrag, cleanup, etc... Try installing another program (no problem). Try third time - this time custom install, application only. Again gets about 1/2 to 3/4 through and starts to go real slow. I moved the mouse and happened to click on the progress bar and low and behold, it installs about 3 files in a few seconds then stops again. I click; it installs, and then stops. So I kept clicking. Yeah!!! 9:30 pm and I have the program (nothing else) installed. Now I try installing the other stuff - same thing. Have to keep clicking to get it to do anything. Finally at 10:00 at night I have the program, help files, and the "normal" stuff installed. Start program. First message displayed - "Your video card does not support Open GL. Do you want to disable it"? I am not a happy camper right now. Peggy P.S. Tried install at work - went through with no problem. The CDs are CD-R, so it may be a problem with them reading OK on one system and not on another.

Was your virus checker working in the background - mine stopped me installing Vue 4, though with different symptoms. The other possibility is buffer-underruns on your CD, though that would affect everything - if you wanted to test that you would have to go into the BIOS at start up and choose a lower DMA mode setting, or even a PIO mode.

No virus checker on at home, installed fine at work with virus checker on. This is the only program I have had a problem installing. I read CD-Rs just fine. It could be just a marginal CD - it may work fine on one computer but not another. I see that often at work, just the first time it bit me.

Peggy, sorry to hear your problems. You said that there was some glue on the surface of the CD. Did you try cleaning it away using a soft cloth and soap/water? That may be the cause. I know we've had a similar case and that was the reason then. I told them to wait for the boxes to dry, but they said you guys were in too much of a hurry! ;-) Steve.

In a hurry???!!! Us! That poor UPS guy though I was going to tackle him! Not sure what is going on. I even tried to copy all of the files to my hard drive and install from there. Everything copied fine but the install still was strange. Who knows - this is a fairly new computer with Windows XP. Maybe tonight everything will be OK. Please though, recommend a video card that works with open GL. I know the card I have is just a plain "cheap" card, but it works fine. I will have a hard time convincing my husband to let me get a new video card and if I do get one, it really has to make a difference. Also have to say the good stuff - renders faster, trees look really cool. Tree editor is what Bryce SHOULD have been. Manual is well written. Looks like a lot of cool stuff on the extra CDs. Haven't even really started to play, but now that I am poking away on it - got to say it; THANKS! Peggy

:-)) Dunno, but if the CD is dirty, then some files may not be copied correctly. What I'd recommend is that you give OpenGL a try with your existing board. You may be lucky enough that it'll work. What board is it, BTW? If it doesn't, then I'd get a Quadro board if that's an option. The MX versions are quite good and not "too" expensive. Thanks for the kind words! Steve.

CD-Rs can be pretty weird. I am a technical writer and also design our CD browser for the software the company produces. Once had a CD where the browser buttons were black and white rather than color. Could not find any difference in any file - bit for bit everything was the same, just that one copy was strange. I have a nVidia Riva TNT2 Model 64 with 32 MB. I'll try turning OpenGL on tonight and report back if it works. Thanks! Peggy

Peggy ;;-) I know I might be interupting your playing with your new toy, but what images where used for the postcards included with Vue Pro? And another question if I may take advantage of your attention :-D Is the GUI based on the same GUI of Vue 4, with no customisation available? The reason why I ask this is because, if a program is used in a Pro enviroment then some user customisation is preferred within the GUI because people like to be restricted by their own workflow issues, and not that of the software. Thanks for letting me take some of your Vue Pro play time ;-) Cheers

I don't recall the name of the scenes on the postcards, but all of them are awesome. Wish my renders turned out like these! I post the names tonight. I'm pretty sure they also included the scenes for them too. As far as customizing the interface, you can change/create shortcuts but not the toolbars. Still only have a choice of all 4 views or one view. Would be nice in future version to have more flexibility there. One thing I did find that I liked is you can make the world browser wider and that increases the size of the preview window. For my old eyes, that's a real help. Peggy

I'm mainly interested in in render quality of non-animated images. Is it better than Vue4? My Vue4 Open GL won't work with my computer, if it doesn't work with VuePro, what am I losing? Was the install a "complete" or "Sidegrade" version?

Hope to get a few renders in this weekend. One thing I like about Vue4Pro is that it is the same interface as Vue4. I don't feel lost and confused as I did when Poser 5 came out. I don't think there is any difference between the sidegrade or full version. The only thing it does is ask for the Vue4 serial number the first time you run the program. As far as OpenGL, again, I may be wrong, but I don't think it makes any difference in the final render, it only helps you see things as you are working. One of the reasons I was a bit upset was I though that OpenGL had been fixed (i.e. work with my old crappy video card). I plan on getting a new card this weekend. E-on has suggested ATI Radeon 9000 series and the Quadro MX versions as being good video cards. Peggy

I got the ATI Radeon 9000 back in July and I've had no problems with Vue 4.12 or Vue 4 Pro with it yet (in the entire day I've had to play that is). Cheers Mark

I got a second hand Nvidia Quadro4 980 XGL board from Ebay and its solved all my 'professional graphics' problems. I recommend it.

Thanks for the card recommendations! As for the post cards, here is the list of cards; Stag by Pascal Marie (my favorite) Prah Nang by Eran Dinur Danish Spring by Thomas Juul Krahn Roue Ar Pesked by Pascal Marie Old Bridge by Eran Dinur Mantra by Thomas Juul Krahn Off to play! Peggy

Thanks Peggy :-) Cheers

Peggy, do you have an older cd drive on the computer that's giving you problems installing Vue? If so you might consider searching for a firmware update for your drive. Sometimes older drives don't like some cd protections. I've had this problem in the past with several games. Ron

No, fairly new computer. I will try again today to read the CD when I do a re-install. In all the attempts to install, I forgot and used the default C drive install. I keep all my graphic programs on D drive. Also, even though VuePro said my graphic card was not OpenGL worthy, I turned openGL on. It works! Not fast, but OK. No crashes after several hours of just playing. Will still be getting a new card. Think I have settled on a ATI Radeon 9000. They are going for less than $90, so won't break my bank account! Very happy! Peggy

OK. Got a new graphic card. Went to CompUSA and of course they did not have the ATI Radeon 9000, but did have a 9200. So I got it. Got it installed, start Vue and test card - says it is OK. Yeah!!! Start to play around and it is really fast. No delay when moving objects. Then I render to screen... Everything goes well, but when it is done, the screen flashes and then goes back to regular view - no render. What is going on???? I decided to check ATI's web site and see if there is a video card driver update. There is, so I install it. Now the render sort of works. It stays on the screen, but still does the little flash, and it does not totally go away, but the textures look much darker. This problem only happens in Vue - Bryce and Poser are working great - renders look fine. Maybe something is screwed up in my installation - I am still having problems getting the installer to run right. I am just about ready to give up on this program.

Forgot to mention... Has anyone tried installing the extra vegetation? I bought the long grass and bonny clump for Vue4. When I installed them to Vue4Pro, it caused the program to hang whenever I selected the plants. Had to reinstall yet another time...

Sorry to hear about your problems Peggy. I just hope it does not turn out as a reflection of what happened with the Vue 4 release. I have total faith E-on will fix any problems...they just shouldn't happen in the amount they do, even on a new version release. Cheers

Yes I have faith the the problems will be worked out too. When I am playing around and using the program, it is wonderful. Just a few bits and bytes need getting in place. Anyway, since the CD installed with no problems on my work computer, I used that computer to burn a copy CD. I will try to install from the copy and see if this helps. I did notice that the original CD is translucent in places. Maybe the laser in my home computer's CD drive is not able to read those sections?? Worth a try anyway... Peggy