I spent an hour setting up a scene with 4 figures and a background. Got everything just right - all the lights set, every finger in place - file saved. I tried to do a big render at 3000 pixels wide, but about half-way through, Poser 5 quit rendering, and the program stopped responding. I re-booted the machine from scratch, reloaded the file, but now my cursor was invisible. I exited and went back in, but when I re-loaded the scene, it was empty - no figures, no lights, nothing. The file was now only 160k, so somehow it saved itself an empty file over itself. I've got a box that's pretty beefy specs-wise, so my hardware is not the problem. Earlier this morning, I was trying to apply a texture to Mike3, and I hit the P4 MAT file by accident, and got hung up on the "looking for missing file" glitch. I used the task manager to shut Poser down, went back in, and hit the wrong MAT AGAIN. The third time, I deleted all the P4 MATs so I won't make the same mistake. Now I have to rebuild my scene again from scratch. Half a day's work and nothing to show for it. I'm going to have to build the scene in pieces and composite it together, which is a compromise, and the lighting won't be how I want it if it was done as a single scene as I had intended. I've been using Poser since version 1, and I've been pretty patient with version 5, but I'm getting sick and tired of my work being a compromise because of my tools. I have no idea how DZ Studio will turn out, but P5 has royally pissed me off, so I'm praying to whatever digital gods are out there that we can have a stable pice of software someday.

I stopped using P5 about a week after getting it, and I got it well before the general public. (I was a beta tester and content provider... most of my beta testing time was spent waiting for a fix to get the program to even run on my system.) I installed every update along the way, and it's still just not worth using. I'm looking forward to DAZ studio too. Doug Sturk

I put Poser 5 away a long ago also. The service packs helped, but the damn thing is still to unstable.

I guess I am lucky. Not experiencing any problems. I have not used PPP since I installed the SR3 for P5. P4 will choke on huge scenes.

Same here, strictly P5 all the way!!!! Runs much better than P4.

The only problem I've had with Poser 5 is figuring out all the stuff that comes with it..

Gee werent we all P5 beta testers. P5 is still a pain to use, if it cant find a file it dies, still have to be careful about how you use it. I have to keep it, I got the upgrade and dont want to reinstall P4 and seperate all the files. DAZ Studio probably wont be everything that everyone expects, but I hope it turns out to be better than what we have.

WHen I had PP, I could load up big huge scenes, three characters, loaded with wings which eat almost as much memory, play with it as much as I wanted and render. Less than 5 minutes usually for an enormous render-- I never went over 2500 though. Oh sure it would "get tired" occasionally usually after about two to three hours but rebooting solved the problem. Now, with P5 and 2.4G procesor, 2G memory, Plenty of swap space,I can do--on a good day-- 2 characters, as long as they are pre vICKI3-- load them up with clothing, some hair, not others, and some sets. One set--Very simple StoneMason's Archway-- wouldnot render under Fire Fly. Marforno sets, so far, do render. More than that I can not do. Put Michael3and Vicki 3 together in one picture-- no way. Maybe when I transfer my Poser to the new 3G Pentium but I doubt it. I doubt it very much. I like the program, I evne like FireFly-- hell, I'm ddicted to FireFly, but it remains clunky, buggy, and unstable. Sorry for the typos, bad arthritis night. Emily

When it comes to Poser 5, some say no problems, and some say it's the software from hell. Me, I guess my experience has been somewhere in between. It is definitely the buggiest software I use or have used in many years (and that's saying something since I've been a sometime beta tester during that time) -- yet my horror stories are not nearly as horrible as some I've read about, and I still manage to get something done, every now and again. I wonder how many of Poser 5's problems are hardware specific?, i.e., has anyone ever done a poll to determine if, say, for example, one particular CPU works better or worse? Or a particular operating system, e.g., version of Windows, or memory configuration?, etc., etc. IMHO, with all the complaints, it's hard to believe Curious hasn't yanked it off the market by now. I suppose they gotta have the revenue, but by not doing so, it seems to me they are likely just alienating more and more customers. But what do I know?

I like a lot of what Firefly brought to the table - raytraced reflections, better texture depths, etc, - but I want stability! If a scene is too intense, I'd like to be able to import it into Studio Max to do the rendering (with the Reiss Studio plug-in), but if Poser 5 won't open the file, max usually won't either. I use Poser 5 almost daily - haven't used version 4 since - but when I hear about wish lists for version 6 or DAZ Studio - all I want is stability! Screw the dynamic hair and clothing, or the face room - be able to find a bump map and render the damned scene! Don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of Poser - Steve Cooper and Larry Weinberg have given me an awesone tool to play with, but as much as I want to be behind version 5, I really had a tough day with it. I'd still buy version 6 without question, and have high hopes for DAZ Studio (but I'm not declaring it the new messiah), - I'm a little put out today by version 5 today, though.

And people wonder why I usually use 1 or 2 characters in a scene... I use P5 almost exclusivly. I don't try big scenes. I don't use the hair or face rooms. I delete all the P4 poses when I have PP versions so I don't wait to load a .bum file that doesn't exist. I don't do animations. P5 works for me because I don't do the things I know will break it. You know, a little LESS THAN HALF OF THE PRODUCT. I use the cloth room lots. I love the material room. I even like the Firefly renderer when I'm not using something I know will hang it up. I couldn't live without the directory management. You know, a little LESS THAN HALF THE PRODUCT! Notice the two parts don't add up to the total? That's because of the most useless feature in the whole program: Content Paradise. You know, Renderosity access with a crummy search engine. Notice that all the other providers are still "Coming Soon" after over a year. Must not be worth the work to either remove them from the link or to actually make them work. Of course, it'd be fine if I knew they would follow the promises they'd made in the past, but Marc won't deliver what was promised. There is another service release coming, but we don't know what'll be in it. Most of the things that were promised in P5 are now being promised for P6. Better stability in P6. You bet I'm waiting for Studio to come out. CL has crpped on me one too many times. Studio may not do everything I want, but at least it comes from a company I've come to respect for their customer service, and Daz has never lied to me. Sorry for the rant. I'm still pssed at them after a year. I hate to be cheated. I'll try to be better in the future. Big Smile! Joy joy...happy, happy...

Well pdxjims, it sounds like we are "two peas in a pod"! :) I could have written the first three paragraphs of your post (except I don't use the cloth room). And I certainly agree with the rest :) The most I've ever been able to render is four characters: one V3, 2/M2's and DNA's Scurmudgeon with a room set and simple lights. More than that and XP Pro takes over and starts turning off the "extras" because the memory starts running out :) I have a 1.7ghz PIV with 512 mb of DDR Ram. Compared to others, I guess I'm doing pretty well :) I've never owned P4 or PPP. The only experience I've ever had with Poser is P5......certainly the most unstable software I've ever used. Rdf, I did a poll awhile back. I thought that it might be hardware specific too, but it doesn't appear to be. It's a mystery to be sure. I'm also anxious to see what DAZ Studio can do. Not sure I'll be able to use Open GL though unless I upgrade the video card. It's never worked for me in Vue. Hopefully DAZ Studio will provide the option of not using it. I hate upgrading computers......and I'm not ready to spring for a new one.

You can get a 256MB Geforce FX card for less than $100 these days. Should handle Vicky 3 and high-resolution textures with ease.

Poser 5 is the best, god dam i just love it, realy ive had no problems, Im running it on a P4 with HT, 2gig ram. Had problems on my old pc, it was a AMD 1.1 and it has very little ram, well people i think you have to have a big pc to get any use out off Poser 5 sorry, cya's and take care...

My machine only has 256MB memory and an Intel Celeron 600MHz Processor. It runs P5 fine since the latest updates (and I do animation) and P5 can handle scenes my P4 couldn't. I've left it running for days rendering and it doesn't crash, so I don't believe this memory leak gossip. I used to think it was os related, I use Windows XP, but there are XP users who can't run Poser 5 on more powerful machines than mine. It really is a mystery as to what causes P5 to crash for these users, but whatever it is, it isn't to do with physical memory.