When software giants like Autodesk & Adobe haven't  upgraded their tools to take advantage of 64 bit OS (vista 64) and greater memory yet I give a tip of the hat to the Poser Development Team for having a cutting edge application that takes advantage of the latest technology.  I got a quad core computer mainly for my Poser work but I'm finding to my surprise that other peripheral software and hardware I use hasn't followed suit yet. Adobe Premiere is not compatible with Vista 64 yet, same thing with Autodesk Combustion.  I had to do with Ulead VideoStudio 11 for now for video editing and I'm keeping my old computer (XP 32) to be able to use my Combustion . Plus my 2 year old PVR updated Vista drivers keep dying because problems with systems with more than 4 gigs of RAM. But my Poser Pro is humming away lightning fast with its sexy queue renderer using my HP four cores and its 8 gigs of ram making me feel as if i'm driving a brand new Lamborgini

Not to sound negative in any way but 64 bit capabilities in a CG aplication is far from cutting edge these days.
Only example i know of is Vue who has had it for quite some time.
Im guessing Maya had it for a while as well (quick googling leads me to suspect since 2006).
And also 64 bit is even further from new technology, existed since the 1960's, since 2003 in PC's.
Id rather say that any aplication that makes use of large amounts of RAM and CPU and that doesnt have x64 if getting behind.
Ive had a x64 system for over 1.5 years and been patiently waiting for something like this, now im not getting it since the issues with exporting to vue :/

Anyways i apologice if my post comes out as negative, it's not meant that way, just wanted to point out that poser is very far from cutting edge ;)
And im glad that you are happy with your new system, i wish i could get a desktop so i could buy a monster system as well :D

Quote - Not to sound negative in any way but 64 bit capabilities in a CG aplication is far from cutting edge these days.
Only example i know of is Vue who has had it for quite some time.
Im guessing Maya had it for a while as well (quick googling leads me to suspect since 2006).
And also 64 bit is even further from new technology, existed since the 1960's, since 2003 in PC's.
Id rather say that any aplication that makes use of large amounts of RAM and CPU and that doesnt have x64 if getting behind.
Ive had a x64 system for over 1.5 years and been patiently waiting for something like this, now im not getting it since the issues with exporting to vue :/

Anyways i apologice if my post comes out as negative, it's not meant that way, just wanted to point out that poser is very far from cutting edge ;)
And im glad that you are happy with your new system, i wish i could get a desktop so i could buy a monster system as well :D

Well I'm looking at it from an animator' with a thin wallet  perspective. As a 3D Studio Max user I know most CG applications have had 64 bit versions for about a year or so which is how it should be when clients are paying over 3 grand for these applications and are under subscription. Still that it has taken roughly a year for Poser to catch up is pretty impressive when putting it in its right context which is our Vue/DAZ/Poser world. It talks good about Poser's intentions to position itself as much more than a hobbyist tool. 

Poser is a darn good tool. I have used Character Studio & MotionBuilder which I loved but that after Autodesk stopped the artist version couldn't afford.  Poser is a good solution that gives results and I hope it keeps improving and I'm happy to see it improving with tools that make my work easier.  It has always surprised with capabilities found in much more expensive suites. I see much negativity going on, perhaps if more people here had tried high end packages they would realize that bugs are universal and that finding them hurts a lot more when you had paid an arm & a leg for your software.

Not so impressive.  Considering that 3D Studio Max is WINDOWS only, the time it took them is appalling actually.  Eh Hem.  Cinema 4D has had a 64-bit version since 2005 (the very FIRST high-end 3D CG application to do so!).  So much for Maya, Max, LightWave, XSI, Houdini, and all of the others for being wankers. ;P

Nonetheless, it is good to see Poser finally wake up and smell the 64-bean coffee. :)

Quote - Not so impressive.  Considering that 3D Studio Max is WINDOWS only, the time it took them is appalling actually.  Eh Hem.  Cinema 4D has had a 64-bit version since 2005 (the very FIRST high-end 3D CG application to do so!).  So much for Maya, Max, LightWave, XSI, Houdini, and all of the others for being wankers. ;P

Nonetheless, it is good to see Poser finally wake up and smell the 64-bean coffee. :)

But who could afford a dual or quad system back then? It had to be an uberexpensive Xeon. AMD had 64 bit CPUs but the real speed increase has been brought with the multi-cores the past year. The same thing with memory, even though cheap for one to two gigs of ram once you get to systems with double that you were talking more than two grand. I'm sure being 64 bits back then had its pros but its better to get to the party when there is already a party.

Quote - Cinema 4D has had a 64-bit version since 2005

Yeh but to use it you would have had to use Cinema 4D, so it was kind of a waste. (ducks and runs for cover :P)

As for PPro, it's good that they finally added it as poser rendering really did need it badly. Apps like XSI, Maya etc have very efficient rendering and can easily do heavy scenes even in 32 bits, but poser sucks in all the RAM you throw at it so 64 bits makes a lot sense.

Now if only they would make everything else in poser multithreaded as well and not stop at rendering only.

 I'm not sure I agree that al of Poser would benefit from multithreaded 64 bitness. It's not like setting keyframes could be any faster.

64-bit has little to do with speed.  It is more about accessible memory space than speed.  There is a slight speed boost in the memory access/bus management.  Nonetheless, what you get is less constriction on how much stuff can be in memory.  Believe me, some of these figures take up hundreds of MB not including their large image maps and so on.  Plus, multithreaded-ness is definitely a speed advantage.  How couldn't it be?  Instead of one single processor working on the entire thing, you have two or four or eight processors working on it SIMULTANEOUSLY.  This isn't about apparent multiprocessing like the old HyperThreading - this is REAL multiprocessing capability.

 Point taken but I still fail to see how a total 64 bit pipeline has any benefit until one gets to the render stage. Textures for movie resolution model aren't close to the size that DAZ ones are - a lot of that stuff is procedurally generated anyway. Sure, the geometry and texture file sizes are heavy, but most of the other things (poses, mat file et.al) will prolly not see much benefit. Maya's 64 bitness mostly exists in mental ray, not the modelling / animation part.

Quote - I'm not sure I agree that al of Poser would benefit from multithreaded 64 bitness. It's not like setting keyframes could be any faster.

The most obvious benefit would be the cloth and hair rooms which would both get a big performance boost if multithreaded.

Not to sound negative in any way but 64 bit capabilities in a CG aplication is far from cutting edge these days. Im guessing Maya had it for a while as well (quick googling leads me to suspect since 2006).>>

Late 2006 for both Maya & Max and those are the industry standards. See article below:

Issue Date: SIGGRAPH 2006 - DAY 1, Posted On: 7/31/2006

AUTODESK DEBUTS MAYA 8 & MAX 9
Marc Loftus
mloftus@postmagazine.com   BOSTON – Autodesk (www.autodesk.com) is at this year’s SIGGRAPH show with 3D tools that are designed to “make the story come alive.” The company is debuting new versions of its Maya and 3DS Max applications, both of which have been enhanced with performance, productivity and pipeline efficiencies.

The 64-bit 3DS Max 9 will ship this October and is even easier to use, with more intuitive tools that require less steps to achieve desired results. The application also boasts more efficient rendering and a layered blending system that can be added to custom rigs and controllers. Hair and cloth tools have been enhanced, and users can now style hair in the viewport. XAF files can be saved and loaded onto bipeds, allowing for the easy transfer of information to and from custom rigs. Pricing for 3DS Max 9 will be $3,495. An upgrade from Version 8 will cost $795.

Maya 8 is now shipping and offers a combination of 64-bit support, multithreading and algorithmic optimizations that enable artists to load massive datasets and interact with them more efficiently than before. Additional features include the ability to override viewports with a user-definable renderer (such as a game engine), support for high dynamic range (HDR) and floating-point images, and support for interactive viewing of native and custom Mental Ray shaders.

Pricing for Maya 8 is $1,999 for Maya Complete and $6,999 for Maya Unlimited. Upgrade pricing from Maya 7 starts at $899.

Animators from the Texas-based animation studio DNA were at Autodesk’s SIGGRAPH press conference, recounting their use of Maya on the recently-released feature Ant Bully. The studio created some 1,700 shots for the film, its trailers, interstitials and DVD bonus content. DNA spent two years on the film, creating its 13 main characters and 18 supporting characters, among others. All of the animation and rigging was done using Maya.

Quote - Maya's 64 bitness mostly exists in mental ray, not the modelling / animation part.

Maya is basically a script shell over a bunch of .dll files which contain all it's libraries (for modelling, animation, dynamics, rendering etc) and they are all compiled with whatever version of Maya they are in. If it's Maya 64, then they are all 64 bit. They may not get any boost from this, but they are indeed as 64 bit as mentalray, or you wouldn't even be able to load them as plugins into Maya. Apps under windows cant run mixed 64/32 bit code, it has to be either one or the other.

And note that large parts of Maya are already multithreaded, including the skinning, IK solver, hypergraph, particles etc. About the only major part not multithreaded is PaintFX IIRC.

About a cheaper x64 program for CG i think that Vue have had it since 2007, and they support multiple cores as well.
In vue its much more needed than in poser tho, a scene with a couple of billion polygons tend to eat memory and the 2gb limit in 32 bit doesnt really help with that :P
I agree that it is good poser is getting it tho, since poser figures tend to be very poly and texture heavy large amounts of ram can only be a good thing.
I also belive that aplications such as maya/max/lw etc tend to use "smarter" soltions requiring less memory (sub d) and i think the textures usually are a lot lower res unless its in extreme closeups.
In poser there is the "1 size fits all" thing going and therefor it tends to be very large texture maps and rather extreme polycounts involved.
A step in the right direction, but it will require a lot more before i use poser to actually render anything tho.

[quoteThe most obvious benefit would be the cloth and hair rooms which would both get a big performance boost if multithreaded.

Agreed.