Hello all...

I been going to CL's website after they have announced their bring of Poser 6, and was wondering if some are using the program and how is it compared to 4/PP/5...

I am really fascinated with their working on the lighting of P6, and the new figures of Jessi and James [what a clever idea in my opinion].

I got both P4/5 and had worked with P4 since 2003, for doing 3D artwork and all.

The one thing that will concern me is the Technical Specs. I am noticing while browsing the Poser boards that it takes a good video card {NVidia} and other specs to use either FireFly or OpenGL, w/ the P4 render support.

Is P6 an improvement over 5? I hope I'm not making a question up that's too soon since physical shipment will take a while. What will get me is that I want to order by early April, and I would like to get the Full Standard version - not the SE because I already have Shade 7.

Other than that...

I have a 3 y.o. Dell, XP [now with SP2], 1.6GHz Intel 4, 256 RAM [of which is used heavily somewhat], with a Rage 128 Pro Ultra GL AGP from ATI [I don't know whether that's my video card or not, but sounds like I need to upgrade mine].

I have tried P4 with no problems whatsoever, but I had read some interesting reviews of P5 with mixed nuts. When they've improved w/ the SP4, it was like P4, only advanced. I now know that P5 have FireFly, and it can take a while to render as opposed to P4 render. I notice the same situation I had when I tried Daz|Studio Beta renders, and it took that long.

So, just wanted to know what others had thought about P6 [assuming those have d/l and tried it out when it was released]...

Have a good evening,

jlovesart
AKA - JBWStar

I'm using Poser 6 on a 1.8 gig Intel 4 with 1 gig of RAM and a GeForce MX4 card. I guess we could call the specs fairly comparable with the exception of the RAM. I would recommend bumping it up to at least 512, more if you can. P6 is indeed an improvement over P5. But you might want to hear from others who have comparable system specs before you make a decision! Good luck!

Thanks Deecey for your reply.

I will be considering more RAM to 2 256 cards if I can. My concerns are a better video card or adapter. Since I mentioned that I have a ATI Rage 128 Ultra GL AGP [Whatever it is]. If I have to invest on a video card since I have a 3 year old 'puter, is GeForce the best or can I get a reasonably-priced video card? I can imagine what the cost of a NVidia is -- hey, who knows, I can be fooled.

I can't wait 'til they ship the software out. I wish they would sell both the Poser 6 and/or the Special Edition [when they last]. I'm looking at those who may have purchased Shade 7 and don't need a second CD of the application. Shucks, I won't get paid 'til Friday :-((... Well, as they say, Good Things Come To Those Who Wait.

I would love to receive some more replies, advices and recommendations...

Keep 'em coming!

Take care,

jlovesart
AKA JBWStar

--Original quote--

"Shucks, I won't get paid 'til Friday :-((... Well, as they say, Good Things Come To Those Who Wait."

--Edit--

I won't get paid 'til Friday, April 1 [April Fool's - who knew!]

Sorry 'bout that. I got ahead of myself and was ranting.

Well, love to read what others are saying and thinking.

Take care,

jlovesart
AKA JBWStar

That ATI graphics card is still pretty decent. It fits quite well with the specs of the CPU. Must have been pretty high end 3 years ago when you bought it. The best you can do is adding more RAM. Don't stop at 512 Mb, try to go for at least 768 Mb. Windows XP and all your programs will love it. What kind of hard disk do you have? It might be worth to add a big fast second disk, say a 160 GB 7200 RPM ATA133 drive with 8 Mb or 16 Mb cache. Again, your OS and all your apps will love that. If you're rendering high quality stills, fast OpenGL performance doesn't matter at all - Poser will use the software rendering engine. OpenGL is useful in the preview windows, and for rendering "toon" animations. And then the performance of a modern graphics card can come in handy. Still, a modern graphics card must get its data fast. I think your system will not be able to utilize a really fast graphics card (say a Geforce 6800 GT or Ultra) to its full potential, you'd need a 3 Ghz class CPU, lots of fast DDR400/DDR2 RAM in a dual channel setup, and a big fast disk system. So I'd advise only upgrading RAM and maybe disk. Or (depends on the size of your paycheck) a complete new system. Upgrading your graphics card will probably not worth the money. Hope this helps, Steven.

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

I am getting positive replies.

"That ATI graphics card is still pretty decent. It fits quite well with the specs of the CPU. Must have been pretty high end 3 years ago when you bought it."

It sure is. I never had a problem with video graphics... Now, needing more RAM may be to my best interest at this point.

"The best you can do is adding more RAM. Don't stop at 512 Mb, try to go for at least 768 Mb. Windows XP and all your programs will love it.
What kind of hard disk do you have? It might be worth to add a big fast second disk, say a 160 GB 7200 RPM ATA133 drive with 8 Mb or 16 Mb cache. Again, your OS and all your apps will love that."

I have been dreaming of updating both hard drive and RAM.

I currently have a 40GB Hard drive with only 10GB used. Don't sound like a good sign does it? I believe - since I have a Dell 4400, that I have 2 hard drive storages [I might be wrong], and was considering getting a second hard drive to do the job, but more importantly a faster RAM would do the job.

Been relying on 256 RAM - that was '03, now since all these new things coming up, memory is key.

I really appreciate all the replies I'm getting so that I'll know what to prepare and what to expect.

Sorry for bringing out my computer specs since this is a Poser forum and not the Computer Tech forum -- lol... I'm just fascinated with all the things Poser.

Looking forward to more input.

Thanks,

jlovesart2
AKA JBWStar

P.S. to svdl(Steven) - I have worked with P5 and tried your Dynamic Clothing (which by far are the best... Keep up the good work) - would love to show you some works I did with them. Will you be making some more for P5 and possibly 6?

Have a great evening.

What is important about that 40 GB hard drive is its speed. If it is 5400 RPM or less, with less than 8 MB cache, upgrading the drive would be a smart move. If it's 7200 RPM, 2 Mb cache, then upgrading would not make much of a difference. And if it's 7200 RPM with 8 Mb cache or more, then the performance is just fine. You still have 30 GB free space. If the drive is fast enough, the amount of space should be enough for the time being. But beware, Poser is very addictive, before you know you'll have gigabytes of content! PS: I'm rather busy at work, so I probably won't post any new dynamic clothes anytime soon. But I'd like to see your work. Happy that you like my freestuff!

Good, svdl. I will consider that. Have u tried P6? Anybody else? Love to know. Take care, jlovesart2 AKA JBWStar

Just got P6 last night and it feels like P5, only taken to the next level. The new features are great. The Firefly engine is stil a little pokey for my taste (and patience), but the great news is that many new features, like Subsurface Scattering and Shadowcatcher, work with the P4 engine. Overall it was exactly what I expected and I am happy with it.

Good. Great to hear... Can't wait to get my hands on my copy of P6. jlovesart2 AKA JBWStar

JBWStar wrote: "I currently have a 40GB Hard drive with only 10GB used." Yeah that's what I have. I only had 10GB used before I got into Poser. Now I only have 10 gig hard drive space left lmao. I have a Intel celeron 2.2Ghz with 512Mb RAM (recently upgraded from 256Mb. I plan on getting a bigger Hard drive and more RAM. My HD is a 40 gig 7200rpm 8Mb cache (Maxtor). So far Poser 6 is running ok on my rig. Mind you, I haven't added my P4 runtime yet so I don't know what performance difference will be.

I haven't used Poser 6 yet, but I do know a thing or two about upgrading computers. First, definitely upgrade your RAM. You can get a 1 gig RAM for about $90. Cheaper if you use SDRAM. You'll definitely want to go beyond the 512MB border. Second, your Dell has 2 hard drive slots so putting in more hard drives may be kind of sloppy. Hard drives don't need to be screwed into hard drive bays, that's just to keep them secure. However if your tower doesn't do a lot of moving, mine doesn't... at least I don't think it moves around when I'm not here... then it won't be an issue.

That's true enough... I been thinking long and hard on what I need to do. Getting a RAM is one of them. Thank you so much for all replies. Just wanting to know how some of coming along w/ P6 since the heydays of P5. Will it become a great improvement over 5 or will there be some glitches? Who knows... Have a great day, jlovesart2 AKA JBWStar