I get Poser 5. Can I delete Poser 4 from my hardrive if I get Poser 5? All I'd really need to save is the runtime, correct? Can runtimes span hardrives, in other words, can there be a runtime on a different drive than Poser 5? With multiple runtimes, could Poser 5 work with a runtime on CD or DVD?

Thanks!

Yes, you can remove P4, if you wish. All you need to keep is the runtime. Most of the original P4 content is duplicated in P5 anyway. Runtimes can be placed on different drives, and even on removable media.

I reccommend you keep both on your system! You can access your P4 Runtime using Poser 5 right where it is and frankly, Poser 4 still has it's uses when it comes to speed and reliability over Poser 5!

I'll second Steve on keeping both installed, at the moment I have 4 runtimes installed into the main poser4 folder & link to them from Poser5 as it gets a little tetchy if you install too much into it's main runtime.

I haven't used P4 at all since I got P5. The P4 renderer is still available in P5 if you need it. Reliability doesn't seem to be an issue (for me, at least) with all the patches installed.

I don't recommend using the Poser 4 Runtime with Poser 5. For one thing, Poser 4 uses BUM bump maps, while Poser 5 uses jpg bump maps. You can get some lousy results from using BUM bump maps in Poser 5. For instance, a character's face will appear dirty, like soldiers who blacken their faces in combat. BUM maps also take up way too much room on your hard drive. Chances are that you've accumulated lots of stuff in your Poser 4 days. It might be a good time to take stock and see what you actually need or want. In other words, it's a good excuse to start over, with a "lean and mean" Poser installation. I've done a lot of work organizing Poser, and experimenting with different approaches. My best solution for Poser 5 is this: 1.) I don't install anything into the Poser 5 folder. 2.) I use separate Runtime folders for each major Poser character, and one for Scenes, etc. 3.) I run CorrectReference to fix all the texture references. I still keep Poser 4 mainly because some items or scenes still seem to take forever to load or render in Poser 5. I just can't afford to buy the newest computer CPU these days.

I recommened that u keep only one version of poser thats will make the search engine of poser files faster and even it will cut the time when installing one of the DAZ product and ofcourse will save a huge space of your hadrdisk.

I highly reccomend keeping both on your system.

I recommend keeping a crate of beer handy whenever asking a serious question about Poser 5 :)

Who3D is buying the Beer! LOL!

I find that the DAZ M3 and V3 tend to work better in P4 on the injections than in P5. There are all kinds of work arounds and even installing the models on both systems, but the bottom line is that they are faster in P4 on my machine. So I keep P4 and use that for anything that does not require P5.

"I recommend keeping a crate of beer handy whenever asking a serious question about Poser 5 :)" Bottle of Scotch works for me.

yay beer :) YAY Scotch :D Course things will get even more confusing soon when Daz Studio gets released ;)

"Course things will get even more confusing soon when Daz Studio gets released" Well, there's something to look forward to :) Judging by experience to date: For some PC users, P4 will be the best most stable option. It will also be the MOST compatible platform for products released prior to the beta release of DAZ Studio. For some PC users P5 will prove more stable as well as more capable, although not as immediately compatible with older products or products released in ignorance of the program. For a third set of PC users DAZ|Studio will actually be the more stable, provide different workflow, and offer them the best mix of speed/stability/functionality. In terms of capability it will be better than P4, and different to pro pack or P5. It wil be the cheapest of all options to get an initial render from, and potentially the most expensive to get to do what you want. Pro Pack users will be in a similar position to all of the above, findign it has the best stability/functionality mix (and woks with other programs). Likewise there will be 4 different contrary sets of experiences among the Mac users. PC users will probably complain that none of the newer software (P5/DAZ Studio) works under Win95/98 like it ought to. Mac users will bitterly recount tales of the same software not performing under OS9. Both sides will glare at the other and smugly insist that the other person has an inferior machine with an Operating System that is a rip-off cludge from someone else's work. No-one will dare consider where DAZ got the idea for DAZ Studio. Whenever any poor innocent asks a question like "Pro Pack, P5, or DAZ Studio - which should I try next after Poser Artist?" all 8-10 groups of poserites will respond as if their own cases are the only type of experience to be had (or at least the only one tha matters) and firmly recommend that the user avoid P5/pro pack/DAZ Studio/beer/whatever at all costs to avoid heartache. Then Microsoft will release a new version of Windows and everything will stop working except for Mac users - until Apple release their next OS version! The DAZ renderer will also time out, to make sure that DS users can't benefit from the more modern code working better with the new OS releases. The cost of coloured pencils will rise alarmingly due to demand. Cheers, Cliff

Cliff, Why, aren't we prescient? I just found my Prismacolors yesterday!!! Complete sets with more than a hundred sharp clean permanent colors. :) The bad thing about permanent media is that there is no undo button. The good thing is that 500 years later pencil work can still be appreciated... as opposed to 10-year-old digital art sitting in the boxes of floppies on the shelf. DAZ|Studio requires OS 10.2 or higher to run. OS 9 users don't even get a chance. I finally installed the copy of 10.1 I had on hand... only to discover that it wasn't good enough. I wasn't going to spend money to upgrade the OS further just to test alpha software. Carolly

"Why, aren't we prescient?" Nah, just jaded :( "The bad thing about permanent media is that there is no undo button" That's what we used to use "rubbers" for (I believe the correct term now is "erasors" due to "rubbers" being appropriated for...something else). "The good thing is that 500 years later pencil work can still be appreciated" Only 500 years? Granted cavemen didn't have true pencils per se, but clay/crayon/pencil/paint TYPE artwork has been known to outlast our digital scrawlings by, well, a significant period :) You've just reminded me of some "sketches" I did on a Macintosh way back when (by which I mean the first launched version of the Mac, not a Mac Plus or anythign fancy like that IIRC). Hmmm, might still have them somewhere (printouts that is - from the Apple dot-matrix printer of the day I suspect... the disks with the images on are long gone). Kim Wilde, an ex-girlfriend of mine, some odd creatures IIRC (annoyingly a friend of the family, otherwise a complete dullard, produced a far better drawing with MacPaint than I ever could and in considerably less time - I might even still have that). I wonder what box they're in? Sigh - they'll turn up next time I'm looking for something else (they usually do!). I must admit that I've got a sufficient system to test DS out on, and could even isolate it (mostly) from my main system so the risk is lower for me, perhaps, than for most - and I still haven't found time to actually try out DS. I guess work and/or people are more important to me in at least the last few months (now THERE is a bizzarre statement for a computer addict!). I think the lack of Poser 5 support (features like hair and cloth plus compatability issues) is a major aspect of my being... unmotivated in that area. Cheers, Cliff