Hi,
I would like to know what is the requirements for Poser 7.

I am running a system with the following:
M/Board 1024 FSB with a 2.1 GHZ Duel Core CPU
512 MB RAM Display DDR2 (PCI Express)
1024 Kingston MB RAM (633 FSB) DDR 2
160 GB HDD SATA 2.
Windows XP SP2

My renders at 1800 X 1800 takes 10 to 15 minutes at Firefly. The indicators shows that my RAM usage is about 890 MB RAM + and the CPU usage up to 50%. I could not do a 4000 X 4000 render, However the 1800 X 1800 render picture is of a good quality.

Will another Gig of RAM make a difference or is there another render option available (Render Engine). I don't want to buy another Gig of RAM if it will not make a noticable difference.

I have also read somewhere how to improve the performance of Poser 5, but I am using 7.
I don't know if any method is available to tweak Poser 7 to be faster. The loading of some figures also take some time.

Another GB will make a difference. That's for sure.

CPU usage up to 50% means that you're not making use of the multithreaded rendering capabilities of Poser 7. Go to tEdit -> General Preferences, switch to the tab 'Render", and make sure the number of threads is set at 4.

Larger renders can also benefit from the option 'Separate Process'. This means that a separate render process is started, which again can use up to 2 GB (3 GB if you trick Windows XP) of address space. If you render in Poser itself, quite a lot of address space is used by the Poser program itself, leaving less address space for the render data.

Here's how you can tell Windows XP Pro (doesn't work on Home) to allow 3 GB of address space per process instead of the normal 2 GB.

• open c:boot.ini in a text editor (Notepad), the easiest way to do this is to right-click the My Computer icon, choose Properties, tab Advanced, button Startup and Recovery, and then choose the button to edit startup options manually.
• add the text '/3GB' to the end of the line that reads 'multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Windows XP ...'
• and save.
  After the next reboot, Windows will allow programs to use up to 3 GB of (virtual) memory each, instead of the normal 2 GB. Poser 7 can make use of this extra GB. Earlier versions of Poser cannot.

I only have 512 meg of memory and I have rendered at 3000 x 3000 pixels. I have virtual memory set to windows managed so it can allocate what it needs. Its probably somewhat slower than a couple gb of memory would be but it does work .

athlon 2800 processor , 160 gb + 80 gb disks and video on motherboard with shared 32mb ram

The requirements are on the box; and page 6 of the manual:

Windows2000 or XP
700Mhz CPU
512MB RAM
OpenGL Video Card
24-bit color display(1024x768)
DVD-ROM Drive

And as always, these are minimum requirements.  Just because you have that or a bit more doesn't mean that you can then do anything with an application.  More memory will help - some careful pruning of useless applications (SysTray stuff is a great place to begin) and services can increase available memory when in a tight memory situation.

Considering that you can get a 2GB stick of memory for $150, adding an extra 1GB should cost about $50-$100 at worst (unless you are one of those who only wants the high-end Corsair stuff). :)

These days, for very general computer usage (internet, email, wordprocessing), 512MB or 1GB is more than sufficient.  But if you are going to get into 2D/3D CG or any other more intensive applications, you should consider a system with 2GB minimum (depending upon how far you want or need to go, I'd actually recommend 4-16GB with dual or quadcore cpu for serious usage).

The Official System Requirments are a huge legal liability for Smith Micro.  If they advertise the program works at a certain set of system requirements, and then consumers find out there are any exeptions to these rules, then there would be huge loophole in the EULA; from which customers would have the right to a refund(I did...!)

There are no Official Set of Limitations, for only meeting the Minimum System Requirements.  The Minimum System Requirements are the set of System Requirements needed to use every aspect of the application.  Poser may run with less, but then you run into limitations, as you are reffering to.

Granted the nature of the beast sways us to want more and more powerful computers; but there is no reason not to take the Min. Sys. Reqs. serious; you should be able to do everything the program is advertised to do!

There are some "Extents of Functions," that ony work with more Sys. Resources; but this does'nt stop the function from working from the get go; I.E. you may not be able to Load and Texture a staduim full of James G2s, but just one should look and render just perfect.

there's alotta folks who could demand a refund, judging by the constant complaints about how unstable poser is, since v. 5. but this is the first time I've actually heard a case where somebody got a refund and is still using poser, apparently. p.s. I'd recommend using xp pro or OS X, and a machine with at least two cores, 2 GB RAM and 256 MB VRAM with openGL. vista might also work but YMMV.

Actually, keeping my P7 Registration was a stipulation of the refund.

Of course, I wasn't implying that the owners of Poser are lying about what its requirements are.  If you want to do big things in any application, you'll have to have the computer to back it up.

When I was doing a martial arts DVD series, can you imagine what was required to take footage into a computer and NLA edit it and author DVDs?  I needed a 300GB internal drive just for the imported raw video, a 250GB external drive just to store the good parts (clips) and other minutia of the process.  Without something like Premiere Pro, no amount of memory would have sufficed with just a 32-bit system.  This was on a Dual Xeon with 4GB of memory, nearly 1TB of disk drives, a good USB2/FireWire video capture card, decently fast DVD-/+R/RW drive, etc.  A few years back, this was a nearly-professional-level setup.

As with any software, they don't measure every possible combination of data and then limit all of them accordingly so that you can't do certain things so as to remain with the system requirements.  This is sometimes done when the limits are rather strict due to hardware or other limitations.  Poser doesn't say, 'wait, you can't load two of those figures' for everybody (only when it runs out of memory).  Some people can load two figures, some can't.  If you want to load two or twenty or two thousand figures, you'd better have the goods to back it up.  With anything less than 2GB of memory, the virtual memory can provide the avenue to simulating that much (but very slowly).  Once you go beyond that, VM can't help ya.

The reason there is this sway for better and better computers is that data is getting bigger (to allow for more resolution and just higher quality).  Granted, alot of this data expansion is also glut - see M$ Windows for the perfect example.  But we went from horrid quality VHS (worse than SDTV) to DVD (as good as SDTV) to HDDVD and Blu-Ray DVD (HDTV quality).  The digital data quality keeps ramping up - and this can only be supported by digital computers fast and ~big~ enough to do it.

Not complaining - just explaining myself. :)

Thanks for all the reply.
I have now ordered another Gig of RAM at about R300-00 ($42.00).

I only have the Home edition of XP.

Quote:
Here's how you can tell Windows XP Pro (doesn't work on Home) to allow 3 GB of address space per process instead of the normal 2 GB.

• open c:boot.ini in a text editor (Notepad), the easiest way to do this is to right-click the My Computer icon, choose Properties, tab Advanced, button Startup and Recovery, and then choose the button to edit startup options manually.
• add the text '/3GB' to the end of the line that reads 'multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Windows XP ...'
• and save.
  After the next reboot, Windows will allow programs to use up to 3 GB of (virtual) memory each, instead of the normal 2 GB. Poser 7 can make use of this extra GB. Earlier versions of Poser cannot.

My Boot.ini looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Can I add the text '/2GB' to it as you have suggested for the XP pro or will Windows goes nuts?
In the device Manager I can see that my page file is between 1536 and 3072 MB, with the total page file size at 1536MB.
I have tried in the past to increase it here but Windows does not allow that.

and add the /3GB switch to the end of the copied line. You can also edit the part between the quotes to make a clear distinction between the two 'versions' of Windows.

In the attached text file you'll find a boot.txt file that should work for you - it's derived from what you posted here.

:tt1:  SVDL - I've heard that Vista handles Memory different.  Is adding this 3GB switch ncessary?  And is Vista's Virtual Memory allotment, per disk, actually more than 4GB; is there a limit?

Also here is what my XP Pro Boot.ini looks like now:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Do I want to change this to just look like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"/3GB /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Also, what would happen if we just wrote in /4GB, /5GB, etc.?

You can do it that way but the /3GB switch can cause system instability so you may want the option to boot with or without it.

kuroyume0161 - Thanks, this is what I remeber from when stwere first showed me.  He mentions something wit the Video Card; to what kinds of symptoms, specifically, are you referring?

Crashes, freezes, BSOD, inability to boot.  It all depends on the computer (hardware, OS, drivers, software).  I found that it caused my previous system to freeze on occasion requiring a hard reboot.  Doesn't always happen immediately - maybe only when taxing the system.  Sort of like when overclocking cpus.

Link 1

Link 2

OK Guys,
I have acquired another GB of RAM and the process is now much better.
I see that the Render settings also makes a huge difference in speed, but also in quality.

I will search for a tutorial or two about this options and just experimenting till I get the best recipe.

I don't mind rendering say 800 X 600 until I am satisfied and then do one bigger super slow but good quality bigger render.

Thanks anyway for the interest and support.

By the way, with this one topic I have seen that this forum get more knowledge in answers than most other.

Attached Link: Memory Fresher?

*At the attached link is an a example of my most recent memory managementing.

"...inability to boot..."

*Thanks kuroyume0161!  Something just critial, like that, was what I was afraid of.

This is why it's better to have the separate options specified in the boot.ini.  This way you can circumvent issues by being able to boot with the standard options - best to set them as default boot.  With a 32-bit/64-bit dual-boot option, I don't even consider the /3GB switch.  If I need to access the 8GB available, I boot 64-bit (though this doesn't help with 32-bit only applications). :)

Quote - If I need to access the 8GB available, I boot 64-bit (though this doesn't help with 32-bit only applications).

It does if the applications are large address aware. Then they will get a 4GB playground all for themselves as opposed to the 2GB address space in 32bit Windows.

maybe I got have here late but....I a4gb ram and the worst of it is when I start on the system...it gets hanging there for hours if I leave...so I force restart and on and on untill starts the OS- what could that be? 
if you wanted me to move this post to Hardware I'l but I have read here some points that equals with my problems.
thanks any help. 

Hmm. Sounds like a hardware problem.
Reading your system specs it might be the power supply unit. That Pentium 4 is quite power hungry, an ATI X1600 also consumes quite a lot of power, and you've got multiple drives.

Another possibility might be a memory module gone bad.

softcris - Could you rule out virus; a reinstall of WinXP, and/or FDISK of the HDD should restore original system performance?