Hi everyone,
I like to render my pictures nice and big, but my computer is kinda getting old, It's a Pentium 4, 2.8GHz with 1GB of ram and with some scenes it gets stuck trying to render much bigger than about 1024x1024, so I was wondering if anyone knows how to get a big render out of an old compy, like rendering in sections or something? or should I just start saving for a new one?

have you tried rendering to disk ? (I don't know what version of Vue you are using but I think that's available in all of them)

I have the same specs as you Ben. I only have problems if I try to go above 2000 x, but I rarely render this size so I'm OK.

If you must go larger, try not to have anything else open in Windows so most of your RAM can be allocated to Vue.
Oh yes, don't forget to purge that memory in Vue!

contact peggy walters here in the vue forums.  she wrote a great tutorial on rendering.  I don't know the link, but she can direct you to it.  In the mean time, try the batch rendering feature of Vue.  It works very very well.

You also have the option to make small partial renders and stitch them together in PS.

The document that garyandcatherine was talking about is probably this one below but it doesn't focus much on render size, it's more about render time. Nevertheless, it's a great document.

http://users.tns.net/~mwalter1/Vue_Render_Settings.pdf

The rendering tutorial I am referring to has to do with using the batch render.  It allows you to make very large renders because it uses an external program (not VUE) to render it.  Therefore, your system resources/overhead are tremendously reduced and you wont get that stupid outta memory issue in Vue.

Quote - "The rendering tutorial I am referring to has to do with using the batch render."

Oh sorry, this tutorial I never read.

http://users.tns.net/~mwalter1/External_Render.pdf

I think the external render may be an Infinite only thing. 

 I've been working on a large commercial poster using Vue and I create elements in Vue and composite in Photoshop.  Even still, Photoshop files become HUGE!!  But its much more manageable than attempting to do it all in one pass inside of Vue.  I highly recommend this method.

Add more RAM if you can afford it. It is pretty cheap right now. Your PC is fast enough, just one gig is not enough for Vue of even Poser.

Even though I don't have overly complex scenes, I'm amazed I can even work with 1GB.
The next time I have spare cash I really need to invest in more RAM.