What brand? How much memory? Graphics card? And do you like the computer? Have you had any problems? I currently have an HP media center PC. For some unknown reason, everything on the desktop will just disappear. This happens at least once a day. When it happens, the only thing I can do is hold the power and reboot. And windowsXP won't even know I did it. I used to like HP computers. All the ones before this one worked great. Until this one. Now I'm afraid to buy another, so I would like some suggestions on why to buy. Don't want end up with the same problem. Thanks.

Just saw on the national news a couple of weeks ago..... Alot of HP computers had serious manufactureing defects and were being recalled. You may want to check their site, or give them a call to see if your model is one of them. SWAMP

My PC - Custom Built - by me. Won't buy a branded PC, as a tech I prefer to build my own. I personally recommend having a custom PC built if you can afford the initial outlay as it will be built to your requirements and not be some marketing guy's idea of the perfect home PC.
Also, custom built PCs tend to be cheaper and more reliable than branded PCs (every custom PC I have built for customers is thoroughly tested for at least 48 hours after system build to ensure there a no software problems or defective parts).

My System Spec :-
CPU - AMD Athlon XP 3200
Memory - 1GB DDR Ram
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 (On Board IDE RAID, SATA RAID, Gigabit LAN, Firewire, NForce2 chipset (supports Dual Channel memory)).
Graphics Card - 128 Mb Geforce FX5200
Hard Drives - Primary Hard Drive - 120 GB Western Digital.

• Secondary Hard Drive - 160 GB Western Digital.
  DVD Rewriter - Pioneer DVR-106D 4x DVD -R -RW +R +RW.
  CD Rewriter - Philips PCRW5232P 52x 32x 52x.
  Operating System - Windows 2000 Pro - Don't like the 'kiddified' Win XP.
  Poser Version - Poser 5 patched to SR 4.1

I used to like HP computers too.........up until the day that my Hard-Drive crashed, 10 days after the warranty ran out! Never again. That was 3-4 years ago, and since I had purchased it at "Costco", I returned it and got a Sony Vaio as my replacement. At that time, Costco, would accept/exchange any goods bought from them with-out question. Now the rules have changed (can't blame them) but you can only exchange in a 6 month period. Normally, I would never do that, but that time....I was really, really, pissed off......as I had lost a whole lot of things that I had purchased. Those things were lost along with the hard-drive.......and I have Never forgiven HP for that. Even though, my father-in-law works for them! LOL! Right now, I am using Sony Vaio #3....that is how happy I am with them. Just purchased one a week ago and have No complaints so far.....other then having to "Reload" all my Poser files. LOL!

Likely to be echoed many times later: Build it yourself or have it custom built for you. I have some extensive experience with computers, and can say that if your system is designed around what you want to do (not what's the latest and greatest or coolest), yu will always have better results than if you pick it up off the shelf or tinker with it a hell of a lot.

I have a AMD K7 CPU 1557 (?) RAM 256Mb HD 80GiG partitioned in 2x40GiG That's all I know. Until last January, I had a AMD K6 CPU 266 RAM 256Mb and a booster card to manage a second hard disk of 80GiG - the original hard disk that I kept on it was 3Gig. Oh and I still use Windows 98 original edition. I like it. Since I bought my first computer in 1998 (AMD K6) and I liked it a lot and it was still very good after 6 years, I had a AMD K7 built for me with items from my old computer (hard disk, RAM cards, CD burner, A: drive. I used the motherboard from my old computer to have my wife's computer upgraded (she had a Pentium2 200CPU so now she has 266CPU + the booster card). The AMD are made strong. ;o) France

I call my computer Franky III, since its my third computer. The name comes because it has things from many brands. Intel processor at 2.4 GHz. 512Kb ddr ram GeForce4 Ti4200 graphic card. 2 hard drives 80Gig and 40Gig. CD unit and CD writter are liteon. Alaska monitor of 18" Running Windows XP and Windows Me.

Customself built is the only way to go. I have negligible problems due to the simple fact that I did the configuration, chose the driver versions, picked the components etc. The monster is: Athlon 64-3000 Gigabyte K8VNXP mobo with dual SATA RAID, a 4 channel EIDE RAID chip, as well as the standard IDE ports. USB 2, AGP 8x, Firewire (not active), 10-100 and Gigabit Ethernet ports, 1.5 gig DDR-400 Kingston ValueRam 500 watt power supply. EVGA GeForce 4 TI-4400 video card. Creative Audigy Platinum soundcard 4 Ultra 133 PATA HDD's averaging around 100 gigs each 1 SATA drive 150 gig (total 530gigs) Sony CDDVD-+RRW on IDE 0 A no name 56x CDDVD reader on IDE 2 CompUSA 7-1 smart media reader Poser gets along very well with the Athlon 64, btw...

If it's for Poser or 3d then have it built. You need lots of memory (if you're going to push it)and lots of hardrive space. Win 2K is good for this, too. Processor speeds are not as important as you might think. The hardware available exceeds the limits of the software so research and don't waste money. Take it from me...I had 3gigs of memory 2 years ago. And memory has its own ratings. Spend the money on registered if you can. Building your own will save you if you could even find a comparison.

IBM ThinkPad R40 1.8 GHz 640 MB RAM (512 + 128) 20 GB HD 16 MB ATI Mobility Radeon Graphics ...

i have the HP pavillion and it works just fine with poser 5, however photoshop and poser dont like each other at all. Photoshop will start when i am on the net, its like the internet connection helps it start or something. on my computer i run windows XP.

Intel 2.8 1 gig ddr XP Pro Nvidia GForce Intel 2.8 1 gig ddr XP Pro Nvidia GForce Intel 2.5 1 gig ddr XP Pro Nvidia GForce Intel 1.7 512 ram Win2K Pro Nvidia GForce All built by myself. Notebook Intel 2.5 512 ddr XP home. Marque

"Processor speeds are not as important as you might think." Within Poser itself, CPU speed actually counts slightly more than RAM -- rendering itself is entirely done by the CPU, and the entire scene is stored in RAM while rendering occurs. CPU speed does matter. Poser and Bryce do not utilize advanced capabilities of video cards, however, so video cards are not as important when it comes to Poser itself (although they affect other things -- games, for example, lol).

My preference is home built..my latest computer that runs my poser 4 & 5 along with my other art programs etc is: Asus P4c800 Deluxe, i875P chipset, onboard gigabit LAN Intel Pentium 4 2.8ghz, 800mhz FSB, 1mb cache, Hyperthreading Corsair XMS TwinX DDR PC3200 (2x512 Dual Channel) (2x) 120gb hard drives in RAID-0 array, 7200rpm, 8mb cache 60gb hard drive, 7200rpm, 8mb cache 160gb hard drive, 7200rpm, 8mb cache MSI DR8-A 8x DVD Writer Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800PRO, 256mb DDR2, 256-bit, 8x AGP Creative Sound Blaster Live! Logitech MX-310 Mouse on Func 1030 ..It is a great and powerful machine, a lot of fun to game on.

My system is custom build. CPU: AMD XP 3200 Ram: 512MB DDR-RamVGA: NVidia Geforce 4 Mainboard: Epox with NForce Chip, i cant recall the name of the board at the moment. Sound: Creative Audigy 2 Harddrive: 80GB SATA from Seagate Optical Drives: DVD-Rom from Plextor, DVD-Writer from NEC At the end of the year this system will be replaced with a more powerful configuration.

Packard bell i Media running XP home CPU P4 2.8 Ram-512 Video-NVidia Geforce 4 Optical drives, pioneer 106 DVD Writer and unknown DVD RAM 60GB hard drive 17" TFT Monitor 2 external drives, Used to build my own but got lazy and bought this and i've been very happy with it..........Steve

1/ PIII800, 256MBRam, 32MB geforce2, 20GB HDD, Win2K for Internet and many smaller apps 2/ PIV 3GHzHT, 1,5GBRam, Radeon9800Pro 128, 2x 40GB HDD for heavy apps like Poser, Photoshop and C4D, scanner, printer, XPPro (not connected with Internet) IIyama VisionMaster Pro monitor (1600x1200) and Flatron 17" for palettes, managers etc. The Flatron is also the monitor of PC 1/ -crosslinked network only when necessary to transfer data -80GB external HDD (usb2) for backup (I also backup monthly on CD and in case of purchases, every vendor like R. or RDNA has its own CD also)

Right now:
PIII 450 mhz
384 mb RAM
15 Gb HDD
Forgot what kind of video card
Windows 98 SE

As soon as I finish building it:
AMD Athlon 2700+
1 Gb DDR RAM
120 Gb Maxtor HDD
PNY GeForce 5700 Optima LE 128 Mb
Windows 98 SE (until I upgrade to XP Pro)

Message edited on: 07/26/2004 08:15

I stand corrected, and knew better. Misinfo is a terrible thing to post! (vnsaen Poser will use almost 100% of your cpu. Regardless of how big it is ;)

Pentium 4 1.4mhz 1gb RDRam 128mb ATI Rage Pro graphic card 120gb Maxtor HDD 40gb Maxtor HDD about to upgrade the chip & get an external HDD to hold me over until Intel decides what direction they are going in.

I have a Sony Vaio Desktop: Pentium 4 2.2Ghz Ram: 1 GIG Harddisk: 120 GIG Graphics: NVIDIA Gforce4 MX440 (soon to be a Quadro4750XGL) DVD-Rewriter for backups No probs so far (although uprgrading to 1Gig of RAM from 512Mb did boost performance in Poser). Next time I'm gonna build a Dell Workstation with dual processors and all the trimmings - anyone want to loan me $20,000? :D

HP zd7000 laptop
1440 x 900 XGA screen
P4 2.66
1g ram
128m nvidia Gforce
60g hd and 80g external hd
WinXP

I was lazy and just bought the PC Magazine 'best buy' in the 'desktop replacement' notebook category. So far I love it. I use it as a graphics work station, basically, so far with no software problems. I was disappointed that I had to send it in for warrantee work after only a couple months. Bad connection between the power cord and the jack on the side of the comp. Yes, they actually had to replace the mother board for this. hehe. HP got it back to me fast, though.

Message edited on: 07/26/2004 13:03

Custom built, entirely own construction, the 8th in the series of customs, at least. Intel P4 25 GHz with BIG heatsink Asus M/B 1 GB RAM Nvidia Graphics 5 HDDs, total about 900 GB (Hitachi & Seagate) Aluminium Lian Li chassis with MASSIVE PSU (450 W) DVD reader and DVD writer 2 soundcards, total 12 outputs 8 cooling fans total S/W firewall, virus checker, spyware killer etc. It's a part of me. :] Fish

well my little monkey ...that smokes and churns away is a custom jobby, i gave my mate 250.00 quid and he got me this ..which is a.. AMD 2.400 256 ram g-force 4 card 80 gig hd windows 98se ... (hated win ME..way too buggy) 20'' monitor with a goblin on the top... phillips 4X dvd writer and a dvd rom it works ... when I remember to feed the hampster on his wheel... :D

homebuilt, the oh..8th reincarnation (original was a 286 w/2 40-meg drives..a simpler time..;) Asus system board, Athelon ~2gig chip, 512 meg 'o memory, and a 40 and 80 gig HD set (for Poser 4 and Daz Studio)
Poser 3- Dell GX1, 384 meg of memory, 466 mhz, and a 4 gig hd (work machine)..;)

custom built by me: dual opteron 244 (1.8 ghz) ati 9600/256 megs video ram 2 gigs ecc registered memory (2 sticks @ 1 gig each) usb x 8 firewire x 2 soundcard from creative labs, with surround sound ports for speakers and midi input 1 hdd @ 20 gigs for my programs 1 hdd @ 250 gigs for my renders :) it's currently sitting on some non-conductive wrap, waiting for the case to arrive. it's working really well though :)

Thanks for all the feedback. Looks like most people say custom built. Never built one myself. And not sure I know of anyone locally who builds custom systems.

it's really not too hard. it takes patience, but it's a good learning experience. think of it as putting together a big jigsaw puzzle which will actually be good for something when you're done. if you deide to try, i'd recommend a 64 bit processor :) flame away people!

can Poser even work with a 64 bit processor?

Compaq 5000 Pentium 4 Windows XP 512 RAM 40 GB HD 1.5 GHZ ATI Radeon 9500 I get a lot of Windows errors, but other than that I love my comp. And I never have any problems when using Poser. :)

Farside; Poser runs swimmingly on an Athlon 64. Can't comment on the Intel chippie, as it isn't available yet, isn't true 64 bit, and I haven't used chipzilla's products since the 386-SX. However, the Athlon 64 code is nothing but good old X86-32 code with 64 bit extensions bolted on...the way the bolted the 16 and 32 bit extensions onto the original 8 bit X86 code. So no problems that I've encountered. Fish; Those Lian-Li tower cases are wonderful, aren't they? 2 sound cards? You don't run Adobe Audition perchance, do you?

sure, it runs well on my dual 64s. i don't think it has any boost because of it yet, but if poser6 comes out able to take advantage of 64 bit processors, you'll be sailing. very few things right now take advantage of 64 bit processors, but time is linear. WE'RE MOVING TOWARD THE FUTURE, NOT THE PAST. take advantage while you build this computer, not the next one. :)

Actually, there is one thing about the Athlon 64's that does boost Poser function; the on-die memory controller and the HyperTransport bus speeds. As heavily dependant on the frontside bus as Poser is, the extra speed there is a nice little boost. And the actual architecture of the chip seems conducive to the kinds of demands that Poser puts on a CPU.

My comp, put together by myself, is a Athlon XP 2800 on a Abit NF7-S motherboard. 1 gig of Twinmos DDR memory, 80 gig Maxtor HDD (recently lost my 40 gigger in a HD crash)
Geforce4 4600 TI 128 MB (soon upgrading to a Geforce 6800 so I can run D|S...;) oh, and Doom III). 19' Samsung Syncmaster 957df monitor, Win XP pro.