Poser 7 can handle quite a lot. Right now I'm rendering a scene containing:

• 15 human figures with transmapped hair;
• interior with several pieces of furniture;
• a hires tree visible through the open door;
• several metallic objects with raytraced reflections;
• several glass objects with raytraced refractions;
• most materials have displacement mapping applied;
• skins have material nodes with SSS;
• 3 point lights with ambient occlusion and blurred shadows
• 1 IBL light with ambient occlusion as a fill light
• 1 infinite light without shadows, specular only

Most figures have their original texture maps, some of the 4096x4096 maps have been resized to 2048x2048.
Smooth polygons enabled
2 raytrace bounces
Min.shading rade 0.50
3 pixel samples.

The scene file is over 600 MB on disk.
Maximum memory usage in Poser itself, 2.5 Gb. Works in a 64 bit OS. Would also work on XP with the /3GB startup switch set (XP Home and XP Pro, but doesn't work for XP MediaCenter).
Rendering using separate process: the FFRender process uses 2.1 GB.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

My gallery   My freestuff