I, like most people, download everything I can that's free and over the past year I have amassed loads of poser characters, props and poses. Now I find that everything takes longer to load because of this. As all of these files contain exact reference paths , how come everything is slower now?

Yeah I also want to know why, and if is there a way to fix that, besides deleting stuff

1. your figures, poses, etc. folders will definitely slow down when you open them in Poser cause theres more stuff to load like thumbnails n stuff... 2. the more you download without deleting things the less HD space you have left....so i dunt know how much free space you need but Poser needs some free space to operate...dunt know how much...its called swap file or whatever thats called 3. the more poser has to load from your runtime folder the more memory gets used up...i think.... do this....back up stuff you dunt usually need on CD...then delete them....delete as much as you can from your runtime folder....then see what happens... if it stays the same just copy back the stuff on your CD to your runtime folders....use the same folder names when backing up so all you have to do is drag and drop.

Biggert I have gigabytes if free disk space, and a swap file the size of Manhattan so this is not the case. I have a gigabyte of ram which, when I look at task manager, does not all get used up. Does anyone know what process poser goes through when it loads a file and why would files not being used cause it to slow down?

ok, but If all the items+thumbnails are pre-loaded then why when I navigate to a MAT folder or light set it takes time to load anyways?

Waffen thats when poser loads the items and thumbnails...it checks everytime for new stuff you added to a folder when you open it...thats when more time and memory is needed... NeilP hmm....dunt know then....i hope it doesnt happen to me dough....i only gots a 1 Gig Celeron 512 MB ram but so far no slowing down like yours....yea mine slow down the more thumbnails there are in a folder but nothing like yours...

I have 125 000 (!) files in my Runtime (Poser5) and I don't think it's much of a problem at all. However, a heavy scene with V3's and stuff - that makes for slowness. Especially with full tracking of course. Fast CPU, lots of RAM, recent version of Win. That's the main issue, certainly. :] Fish

If you only have one Runtime, it might help to divide up your stuff up into several Runtimes, and try to keep your main Runtime as lean and mean as possible.

Also when you load a figure, if the texture for that figure/prop etc is not in the exact location pointed to in the material, poser does a file search through the entire texture directory for the file. If you have thousands of files that can take quite a while. There's a utility (forgot the name) that sets the path correctly in your file so it loads faster.

Hey Randym77 I like you're Idea I guess I could try having several Runtime folders but I already have lots of freebies and other items installed. I'll try putting away some Libraries Folders but would it help? And does Poser 5 preloads the Geometries & Texture Folders? If so, I'm in deep !*$&"

I recently had to re-install Windows XP and I just held my breath and deleted my runtime folder. It ran so much faster I was stunned. I just re-installed the stuff I was going to use. All things are backed up (well almost everything, but that's another story.) You have to be ready to do this, though, old pz3's are about useless without the needed .obj, .cr2, etc. files. My new policy is if I'm not using it, put it on a CD or backup hard-drive and get it when I am going to use it. Also, I now delete files once my wip's are finally just picture files. I got rid of all my project files that just didn't seem to be panning outand Poser and my harddrive are much happier. I know this seems extreme, but I can also browse my figure/prop files in the side window alot faster. I do run into "Darn, I need such and such a file for this!" and off to the closet I go for the CD. Just what I do. Regards!

Or if you have a more updated system (not one of those pre-built peices of crap from Best-Buy, Circuit City, or any other computer trap store), and you have Serial ATA, do what I did, put Poser, and your huge as hell Runtime folder on that SATA drive... Why? Because the SATA data pipeline is dedicated to nothing but those type of drives, no interference from the PCI bus(As is the case with old fashioned ATA), and it's pipeling is 150mb/sec. While your hard drive will not fill that entire pipeline, it still makes loading things that much faster. For instance, when I load a large project, say in excess of 80mb, it takes only about 20 seconds to load up. Rendering is another matter however, as that is mostly processor intensive, and when you're running AMD, anything below the FX series is gonna render about as fast as a lame horse. Has it's moments of fast renders but most of the time it just takes forever. Now, if I had a P4EE(Pentium 4 Extreme Edition), or an AMD Athlon FX51(the best true 64-bit Processor, ask Maximum PC, it beat out the Mac G5, hands down, and that Mac was a dual processor! That's a rant for a different time though lol), your renders will be blisteringly fast. Also what can help is a DECENT video card. Don't be taken for these POS $60 cards. If you're serious about doing 3D, even if it is just a hobby, get yourself a mid-range $200 card. You won't be disappointed. Well, I think that covers my rant!

I'm not an expert on the inner workings of Poser 5, but IME, keeping the size of your main Runtime down will help your speed a lot. Correct Reference is the free utility Mason is talking about. Search for it in free stuff. You might also take a look at PBoost, a utility for organizing your Runtime(s). I believe it's written by the same person as Correct Reference. It's not free, but it's not too expensive. If you don't want to follow Caravaggio's drastic method and delete your whole Runtime and start over, PBoost might be worth your while.

I think I'm gonna take a look at PBoost now that you mention it. I don't really advise doing what I did, I just wanted to say that Poser was indeed faster without the content installed. I had several other issues with the computer and other software that practically demanded I delete the folders. I guess I should have said, "here's what happened to me and the upside was". Please don't go this route if you don't have to.

I thought video cards won't affect Poser because it doesn't use hardware acceleration?

No Poser doesn't use graphics HW or 3D acceleration, that's correct. OpenGL support was one of the things I hoped for most in P5, I was VERY disappointed when it wasn't included :o( However, a really fast graphics card will allow smoother tracking and such, simply because it can handle faster graphics throughput. But the graphics card has no bearing on render time at all. --------------- I do the exact opposite of caravaggio - I collect enormous amounts of stuff in my Runtime, so that everything is at my fingertips all the time - like 20 000 poses for instance :o) I much prefer that to a stripped system where I have to go look for stuff all the time on a cd and add it and fiddle around. I always have about 50 WIPs lying around and unfinished business everywhere in my folders. And I never throw anything away, ever. Not even old versions of PZ3's. OK Poser is a little bit slower, but not so much that it irritates me. :] Fish

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