I seem to have 2 major problems with Poser 6, and Id like to know if other people mirror my problems. 1. My libraries take much longer to open now. This is not "my runtime libraries" taking longer to load. I did not have this problem with Poser 5 (with more files), this occured when I loaded Poser 6. This increased loading time is trying my patience. 2. The "out of memory" problem (which now I see others are having). It nuked the file I was working on - which was a paid commision piece....I was LIVID! This content update (which I've installed) doesnt seem to fix either problem. Thanks for the info. Bruce

I haven't noticed any slow-down with my libraries in P6.

In fact, just the opposite. They seem to be faster than P5. Not to mention easier to navigate.

2. The "out of memory" problem (which now I see others are having). It nuked the file I was working on - which was a paid commision piece....I was LIVID!

I can't blame you for being livid about this. Many of us come close to it ourselves.

I've got some scenes that I can't render at all. I've got other scenes that I can only render about halfway.

Frustratin'.

The content update won't do a thing to fix the problem -- more's the pity.

It'll take a service release to do that.

I've noticed navigating the library is slower, too.

The content update was just content. It wasn't meant to fix the memory bug or other functional problems. They are working on a SR that will do that.

My advice: do not use Poser 6 for paid commission pieces, or any other actual work. It cannot be trusted yet. Go back to Poser 5 until the SR is released.

Or alternatly, before you render save with a temporary name - render file - or some such. I save before every render everyway, so a simple name change to a stand, entirely temporary file isn't much of a problem. That way, I don't create vast ammounts of extra, unneeded files, just one (possibly one in each folder.) So, my routine is to save as normal as I go along, then pre-render, save, then save as, then render. If the render fails, I've not lost anything. Probably due to years of experience of the vagaries of windows, I always make lots and lots of backup saves of anything of importance anyway.

According to operaguy, the safest way to save a truly important project is to "save as", close out of Poser, reopen and then render, this dumps the memory and keeps your latest save from being corrupted by a bad render-- if I understand og's instructions correctly. I also, second Xeno's recommendations to work only in P5 for truly vital work until this utterly random and unpredictable memory prob is fixed. Better be soon too, but more important than soon is a fix that completely works without side-effects, so. . . Sorry, you got caught in this drive-by file asassination. Hoping I cross post with operaguy who can explain his saving method better than I. Emily

If the render fails, I've not lost anything.

Data-wise, true.

But on a commercial project, being unable to render the file won't hold water.

It's always a great idea to backup important .pz3's (and all other data files).

But a client won't care that the scene is backed up if they aren't getting a final render -- due to a glitch in the software.

Clients want results. Regardless of the methods used to obtain those results. Final product is the only thing that usually concerns a client.

And currently -- P6 falls short.

It's so irritating. Because outside of this one critical flaw, P6 is a superb piece of software.

I also, second Xeno's recommendations to work only in P5

Actually, randym77 made that suggestion. I can't take credit for it.

;-)

Thanks everyone. Further to that, are people having longer load times with their folders. As I've said this only happened with Poser 6 and not 5. I need relability...Im going back to the slightly less unstable Poser 5 and do my rendering in VUE. Vue also does not accept Poser 6 pz3 files.

I need relability...Im going back to the slightly less unstable Poser 5 and do my rendering in VUE.
Vue also does not accept Poser 6 pz3 files.

That's been my workflow for a long time now. P5 can't consistently handle any heavy lifting when it comes to renders, either.

Vue will do the job. It always has for me.

And Vue should be able to accept P6-format .pz3's before too much longer.

What P6 actually does render, it renders beautifully.

That's part of what's so annoying about this.

I think you can get Vue to accept P6 files, but you have to disable that P6 external morph thing.

But I'd still recommend sticking with P5 for now.

One question that I have about the memory bug, which I can't reproduce due to another mysterious bug on my machine, entirely un-P6 related. When people say they can only render part of a picture, does the image render half way down then fail, or does it fail before the final render starts? If the former, does area render work if limited to smaller areas?

When people say they can only render part of a picture, does the image render half way down then fail, or does it fail before the final render starts?

I've had it happen both ways. In some cases, the render will bomb out before all of the textures are loaded; in other cases, about 50% of the image will render up just fine, and then stop halfway through.

I am able to successfully save half an image, for all of the good that it does.

As for your question concerning the area render -- I haven't attempted to do one yet. My guess would be that it might or might not work.

And that's the difficulty with P6. You might end up with a rendered masterpiece -- or half of a masterpiece -- or nothing.

It's not reliable. And that's a problem.

Com'on, CL. Get this thing fixed...........

Then you'll be on the pedestal. Where you should be.

Bloody hacks for putting out such a bug ridden product. These are not minor bugs - this is a major problem. So much for quality control.

The only reason I ask about the area render is that my last gallery post needed doing in several fragments for speed purposes - something in the settings almost stopped my machine, so it was stitched together out of five or six parts.

Second question - does the bucket size make any difference? I have a two V3 and twelve light scene that locks my computer at the normal settings, but renders fine at a bucket size of 8. Much slower of course, but does at least finish.

There is a lot of help at RDNA Poser 6 forum...I have been learning a lot there in between my times I want to "give up"... I have noticed the MOST important thing is that your graphics card have the most up to date driver!!!' I also learned the odd thing of lowering the 'bucket' size to allow the render to work... I normally use 64...but taking it back to 32 or less...makes slower render but does allow for more figures in the scene. Beyond that, I do have an AMD 3 gig cpu and 1 1/2 of the right kind of ram for my 64 bit board... and Poser 6 is a happy camper. Now, when I close it, having been using my P5 runtime...then next time I open it takes a long time...BUT if I re-open the same day, it will load pretty fast then... even with P5 I keep trying to remind myself to have a TINY figure and pose library last opened, so when it comes back to open again, it does not have to "load" such a big bunch of files. Hope it works out for you, you didn't say what your hardware is? I know my P5 is a LOT steadier on a higher end machine. (and have been told that a 64 bit machine makes no difference for Poser because it is not written to take advantage of it...BUT the machine has a lot of power so works really well anyway.) I use a radeon graphics chipset too, not nvidia.

I have a pentium 4. 3.7 gig computer. 2gig ram. The new Extreme ATI X850-XT video card. For the time being until CL gets their head together, ill stick with Poser 5 and Vue.

Unfortunately, the work-around tricks used to "fool" P6 into completing a render don't always work.

Reducing bucket size, reducing textures, turning off texture filtering.......etc.......etc........might enable you to get something finalized. But then again, it might not. You take a gamble every time that you click on the "Render" button.

A commercial graphics artist can't afford to gamble that way. A commercial graphics artist needs a program that they can rely upon to do the job.

Having a high-end PC with tons of RAM and a fabulous graphics card won't necessarily solve P6's render difficulties. A first-class machine will most likely mitigate the effects of the Memory Bug -- but it won't make it go away.

Only Curious Labs can make it go away.

Once they do, then I'll have nothing but good things to say about them.

But until then, this crucial flaw is too big to ignore.

I have faster load times with folders in P6 versus P5. I agree with everyone - get the fix out. Heck, don't even wait for a full-blown SR-1 - just put out a fix updater for that for starters. You guys did the same for the PP/P4 memory leak. ;) That is, if my memory is correct. Bwaahahahaha. Er.. umm. But seriously... We needs to make purty pictures!

We needs to make purty pictures!

At this point, I'd settle for ugly pictures......so long as they can be turned out without the need for hair-pulling.

How about using the copy of Shade 7 with Poser Fusion to Render?

I only got P6 today and installed it this afternoon, but I have to say my libraries are way faster than with P5 (a program I loathe with all my heart and soul). I can't speak to the memory issue. No problems today, but it's early days yet. In fact, for the first time since Poser 2, I've installed a version of poser that appears to do what it's supposed to, with only very minor glitches (I can't get rid of 'show camera names' or 'figure circle', no matter what I do - but I had that in P5 too). Even OpenGL worked straight off the bat, and I only have a P4 2.6/512 RAM and an old radeon 9200 card. I'm truly amazed that poser hasn't thrown a hissy. I realise none of this is helping your problem, but the slow libraries thing at least, isn't a general bug. mac

How about using the copy of Shade 7 with Poser Fusion to Render? I confess that I haven't tried Shade yet. In fact, I haven't even installed it. Between both Poser 6 and Vue Infinite, I've already got a lot on my plate. But thanks for the suggestion. Shade is definitely a program that I'm going to look into.

My only real complaint with Shade (and it is fairly minor) is that PoserFusion seems to ignore your camera settings, so I create my scene, carefully light it and place my camera, go into Shade and the camera setup is all lost. Am I missing something?