I keep reading about this patch (5.1) ...Is it something I should have and is it safe to install...What does it do? Bryce is running ok and I don't want to put something in that will screw it up??? Where do I get it? Advice...

The only patch I know of was the one that was released shortly after Bryce 5 was released. It is 5.01. Not sure if that is what you are referring too. Daz is going to release 5.5 soon though... Paul

you get negative metaballs, the ability to pick some default trees and such... and maybe a couple of minor bug fixes. it's good to have it. if you don't shrug. drac

Thanks ...I'll wait...

Works fine on my machine and has since it first came out...My choice tho...

From the 5.01 Readme.txt; ---------- Many many bugs have been fixed and issues addressed in this release. Of particular note, the following issues have been fixed: --Artifacts occasionally appeared on transparent objects when using lights that have soft shadows. --Bitmap sequence output was only rendering one frame of a network rendered animation. NOTE: Images are not assembled until after the animation render has been completed, so you will not see any image files until the animation sequence has finished rendering. --Many bad things that were happening in the Tree Lab. --Metaballs and grouping workflows were leading to crashes. --Camera tracking problems and associated crashes have been addressed. --The clipping bracket in the terrain Editor was acting strange on occasion. --A persistent and annoying row of white pixels at the top of the Terrain Canvas in the Terrain Editor was sometimes produced. --The Light Lab no longer explodes when playing with animation there. --Update and feedback in the Network Render Manager has been substantially improved. --Depth of Field and Panoramic rendering now play well together. --And many more issues...

lol --Many bad things that were happening in the Tree Lab. what, they deleted it alltogether? Drac

It's worth the upgrading, it doesn't take long and it does make a lot of things more stable. And it's free. 5.5 won't be. :^)

It also did introduce at least one bug that I'm aware of. Material editor, when you try using 2 photo textures one right after the other, without exiting editor. Bryce crashes.

Hmmm....I've used 2, 3, 4 photo textures, in a row, no prob.

Yeah, doesn't happen always. But a guy over there at DAZ also has that bug. What I meant, put one texture in Diffuse, try to put another in a different channel in Bump and bang! Everything goes. And as far as I can see, it doesn't have anything to do with the length of the path or texture name, nor the size of the texture. Possibly with the time/effort you spent choosing one particular texture among the others. ie, if you tried one texture after another until you've chosen one. I'll try to see.

Yup, exactly as I remembered. I used a simple cube (not Drac's, though :-)), Put the buttons into Diffuse and Ambient, clicked on P, clicked on the first empty rectangle beside Leo, chose a picture, deleted the chosen picture, repeated the process, then deleted Leo, finally chose a third pic, clicked OK. Put a button into Channel B in Bump, clicked on P and "Bryce5.exe has generated an error. Do you want to send a report?" (I'll have to turn that off one of these days.) The same thing used to happen on Win 2000 after I installed the 5.01 patch. There is even a post of mine around here when I first noticed the bug.

Wow...I've NEVER had any of that happen, weird. And, I have done TONS of back and forth with pic textures... I'm believing a lot of these types of problems does have to do with Bryve mis-managing itself. Over the last 4-5 years I can't really remembr EVER having Bryce crash on me, for any reason. But, I've always kept my PC on 3 hard drives (one for the OS, One for the actual program(s), and another for virtual memory and file storage. I think that has helped me over the years. (just a guess, though) AS

Never seen that bug either. It may depend on a comination of things, like other active software, PC manufacturer, etc.

Hm. Other active software was certainly ZoneAlarm, Logitech Mouseware, and the sound card stuff. (I've got an Intel board with integrated sound.) Antiviruses, I think the first time I had a different program than I have now. So it's down to the three. I've always let Windows manage virtual memory. But I did play with it and don't remember whether anything changed.

I have ZoneAlarm Pro running, and a program called Start Up Cop Pro. Other than that, I disable everything else. Virtual memory; I set mine to be 1Gb on my D drive. I set it as both my min and max, this way the virtual memory does expand up and down, this reduces fragmentation, and the need for de-fragging. AS

Hey, AS, I've been wanting to set up my virtual memory to increase it, but I can't find how to do it in the manual or anywhere. So where is the place to adjust the settings? Thanks.

Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance (Settings) -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory (Change). As AgentSmith said, it's a good idea to put your virtual memory on a different drive from your OS files. And if you increase your VM too much, Windows might try to use it regardless whether they need it, and it will slow things down. Microsoft recommends 1.5 times RAM. I've got one gig, so my VM is 1.5 GB.

When I said "drive", I mean a physical drive, as opposed to a logical partition. IN case you don't know, the latter is just a part of the same physical drive. Jeez, this place looks more like work every day. :-)

Hey, AS, I've been wanting to set up my virtual memory to increase it, but I can't find how to do it in the manual or anywhere. When I first got WinXP I was driven daft by how slowly it runs (still does). A friend suggested increasing the Virtual Memory, and I messed with it a teenshy bit. PC locked, wouldn't do anything, nightmare time...... tried to revert to its previous incarnation, but that didn't work. Had to comletely re-install the OS, back to 'out of the box' :o(

Not even in Safe Mode? But yes, it does happen occasionaly.