I've had ongoing memory problems with Poser 7 to the point that I finally became so frustrated, I decided to upgrade one of my computers just to run Poser. So I bought a new motherboard and 4 gigs of memory.  When I finished installing the motherboard and ram (which of course required reinstalling Windows XP (32-bit, Service Pack 3) and all of my programs), I opened Poser in anticipation that my memory woes would be a thing of the past. I loaded two V4 characters with high res maps and hair but no clothes. Posed them, lit them, set my render to 1100x1100 pixels, pushed the Render button and was soon greeted with an error message that Poser had insufficient memory to load the texture maps. Huh? All of my computer upgrade time and expense was for nothing?

I'm a seasoned 3D animator. My Lightwave PCs, with 2 gigs of memory, have output complex animations for Imax films and for HD 1080i. But even a modest 2 character scene in Poser brings my computer to its knees.

This really seems to limit the usefulness of Poser. Is there a solution or is this just the way of the Poser world? (I would rather not have to render characters separately since often they are interacting with each other.)
 

Thanks for any suggestions. 

Poser's "Insufficient Memory" message doesn't necessarily mean
you're short of RAM.   It seems to be a default message.  I'd look first
at the file paths for the textures, be sure all of them are exactly right.

Look at the text of the PZ3, rather than the names that show in the
material room, to be certain.

I get that myself -- I even upgrade my graphic card and the ram to my computers max  -- I just click it out and go my merry old way,  everthing turns out just fine me.

 I dont think its a texture path problem. I can load a single model and render okay. When I experienced this problem before, I could sometimes get a scene to render okay after multiple attemps and crashes...

How often do you defrag the harddrive that Poser is installed to? 9 times out of 10 for me that message means I forgot to defrag that week.

 I have no concept of how the fragmentation of a hard drive could lead to an insufficient memory error. I'm not discounting the suggestion, I just have a hard time understanding the correlation...

My main runtime is on a removable 350 gig Maxtor usb2 hard drive. ...wonder if that could have anything to do with it?...

I'd love to explain it but I don't even understand it myself.

Is the external HD usb2 connected to the computer directly or to a hub?  Hubs are notorious for not playing nice with external HDs.  Try setting up your characters and textures into runtime folders on the computer HD and render.  See if that makes a difference.

 The external HD is connected directly to the computer. I think I'm going to pick up a new internal drive for my runtime to see if it will solve the problem.

Hi, the fragmentation of the hard drive does produce a performance hit, since the swap file is located there and this is what supplies the addtional working space for the program. I'm really concerned about the win xp 32 os with 4 gigs of ram because the hack used for this setup is unsupported by Microsoft although this method debuted on the Microsoft Developers Network site (they say: "only to be used by knowlegeable end users"). If your bios dosen't meet the requirements, then you'll end up with an unstable system.Ultimately it's the os that decides whether it's a go,  not just the motherboard manufacturer.  Additionally usb drives are much slower than internals and so will  take longer to supply data to the program/os as needed. Unfortunately, if you really want to minimize memory issues, you'll need a 64 bit system with more like 8 gigs of ram. Under these conditions most memory problems vanish in Poser as well as Windows itself. Oh and despite what you'll read about Vista on the net, I'd upgrade to it. Since service pak 1 it's  become very stable. Anyway, I hope you can resolve your problems.

Regards...

And bear in mind that the memory message is Poser's one-size-fits-all error message. It may have absolutely nothing to do with memory at all (I got it when a model inadvertantly had a front camera locked to it, and Poser couldnt figure out how to deal with a front and main camera at the same time). So it could be anything, actually, from a bad path to the fact that Poser has reached its memory limit.

Santel, I have 4 gig of memory in the machine but only 3 show under 32-bit XP. I have't attempted the hack to show all 4.

Thanks to everyone who has commented. I like Poser and am an avid user, but I am very disappointed that it handles errors so poorly. From what I now understand, there is no real way to pinpoint the problem. It pretty much could be anything.  I would much rather be spending my money at the Renderosity marketplace than on more hardware, but in order to try and stablize Poser I am going to upgrade to Vista 64, add 4 more gigs of memory, and install another internal hard drive. As mentioned before, I do some high end animation and never have this kind of problem with my professional animation packages....

I've had that problem wiht an 8 gig machine, but...Poser 6 can't use more than 2 gigs, can it?

Much as I hate to say it, Poser isnt a high end animation program. I've done a lot of animation work with it and love the results and feel that someday, with proper work, it could be one -- but right now it isnt. The market isnt that interested, so it's never been all that developed (just like the hair room and the clunky cloth dynamics). I dont think I'd be trying to push it into something it's not fit to handle.

Sean, I wan't suggesting that Poser is a high end program. I don't use it for animation at all, only for stills. If fact, my comparison to high end programs was to make the point that expensive, professional programs that might be expected to me resource hogs run fine on a 2gig machine but Poser, which is anything but a high end package, does not. That said, I do love Poser (and the wealth of 3rd part support) for stills.

"...Poser 6 can't use more that 2 gigs, can it?"

Does anyone know if this is true of Poser 7? If so my upgrades to Vista 64-bit and 8 gigs will be pointless...

I don know about the 2 gig issue, but I do know that Poser has terrible memory management. One of the things I dearly wish they'd address is eliminating textures no longer used in a file. The only way to do that is to save, close, and re-open. For a large file, that's a pain.

My apologies for misunderstanding about the animation issue. But let's face it: Poser (and Studio, for that matter) arent high end with high end features like proper memory processes. I dont know if that's because the required coding is too complex or it's just too low a priority. But there you are.

tkdoherty2:  Have you set up a larger swap file? often windows does not allocate enough virtual ram to poser so set up a custom paging file.  Go to controle panel/system/advanced tab/under performance click settings/advanced tab again/under virtual memory click change/select your drive and select custom, for your system I would enter 4000 in the top box and 4096 in the bottom box, this forces windows to allocate a large paging file which poser will use.  You will be required to restart your machine.  I used to run some pretty large and full renders on a small 2 gig machine this way.  It solved all my memory problems.

i run poser pro on a vista 64 machine with 8gigs of ram, with that ammount you can even disable the paging file at all, textures and other stuff load so friggen fast now for me because windows doesnt has to access the way slower harddrive anymore even if theres enough ram left  :O 

Hi again, I understand P7 is 'large address aware" and can utilize as much as 4 gigs even though it's a 32 bit program but if you're taking the  plunge get 8 gigs and Vista Ultimate. At these forums, someone clocked P7 using 3.65 gigs during a render. Good luck!!!

regards...

Thanks to everyone who commented here. I decided to go ahead and purchase a new internal hard drive, more memory, and Vista Ultimate 64 bit. I'll report back whether or not this solves, or at least helps, my memory problems in Poser.

why ultimate? the system builder version of vista business does the same job for less dough

Are the textures files on the external usb2 hard drive ?
Is Poser7 installed on the external hard drive ?

As you engage hi capacity render file (i guess you'll get a swap file of more 4GB), i think the problem come from USB2 port.

Do you know, the size of a file transfert is limited in USB2 port ?
You cannot transfer a 4GB file with USB2
why ?

it is a limit by external hard drive cache memory and OS system.

if i was you :

• i will call the support (off course you purchase poser aren't you ?)
• i will install xp64 or vista64

good luck !

at lest i have another question : maybe the memory you miss is a video card memory !!! how do you render ? openGL ? software ?

I wonder if you just have a cross-talk problem?   Are you by chance putting the same outfit or item on both figures?  If somehow the two items end up infinitely referencing each other, Poser would run out of memory even if you have 1024GB of ram (eventually anyway :-) )

I think it's clear no one here thinks you need an 8GB Vista x64 system just to render 2 V4.2 figures (I have XP-Pro w 4GB, Quad-core and I often do 2 V4.2 and up to 5 A3's in one scene - no problem, other than the PZ3/PMD's get 100MB+)

However, I have had bad objects stop renders - often with no message at all.  The Render just runs 5 or 10 minutes, then shows me a gray image, happy as can be. 

Things which have stopped me in the last month:

1. I placed a texture on part of spunky's space suit for A3 ... no more renders ever completed, no message; clear the texture, still no joy. Delete the suit, create a new one and stick to solid colors, no problem.  What was wrong? Don't know.
2. I now have some silly halloween candy bag, but with three in one scene, applying a MAT always effects the first bag only, plus same thing. Renders never complete, but I get some cryptic message about (cannot find texture "") with no name.  Delete all three bags, rendering works, add three more and leave coloring to postwork, all is fine.

As for the USB limit, I'd heard that but I think it depends on the software/hardware versions because I have several 20+GB files on my external USB drive (they are encrypted TrueCrypt files).  They work fine.

Simply, expand your paging file and you will solve your problem. ^^

Sorry for my english :P

Your best option given that you now have 4 Gig of RAM, is to install Windows XP 64-bit or Vista 64-bit. XP 32-bit cannot use more than 3.5 Gig of RAM total, and apps can only access 2 Gig of RAM each unless the /3Gig option is used as suggested on the Microsoft site, in which case they can access 3 Gig max.

If you switch to the 64-bit OS'es you will find that Poser will make use of more memory than before, especially if you 'Render to a separate process'. This is because 32-bit apps under a 64-bit OS can now access the max limit for a 32-bit app, which is 3 Gig. Also, each 32-bit app can access 3 Gig max, so using 'Render in a separate process' means that the renderer has 3 Gig to play with without Poser itself using up some of it. This can also be made up of a mixture of physical memory and swap space.

Secondly, you will find that even if you have only say 3 Gig of RAM, Poser will still be allocated more than on a 32-bit OS because swap space also counts towards the max limit of 3 Gig, but remember that disk space is roughly 1000 times slower than RAM.

Some tips for keeping Poser running well -

1. Always defrag your hard drive regularly to speed up access to the file system. This makes a huge difference.

2.If possible, keep your swap file on a different physical hard drive to your OS, Poser and Runtimes.

1. Keep Poser and your runtimes installed on high-speed disk drives like SATA or SATA II

2. Pray to the Poser gods before each render, and regularly make offerings and sacrifices. It keeps them happy. V3 naked in a temple with a sword usually works. ;)

UA

I increased the paging size from 2096 to 4000-4096 like they said and I still get the same error

 I made several changes. I upgraded to 64-bit Vista and 8 gigs. I also moved my runtime to a new internal drive. So far so good. Not only has Poser performed much better, I can also multitask Photoshop and Chrome.

All I got that I know of is this:

2 Internal Hardrives (1 250Gig taht is my main HDrive that poser6 and XP is installed on and a empty 500 gig drive

Check your poser TEMP folder on the General preferences.

I've noticed that poser doesnt get rid of previously loaded textures even after selecting a new scene, it keeps everything on the TEMP folder (which is C: by default) so after working with a few figures this folder can grow to >10g, if it gets out of space, it comes up with the "No memory" message wich is missleading.

I've seen my TEMP folder grow as big as 30g after opening a few scenes in succesion, it only gets deleted if you close poser.

I would reboot, disabling any running software , then start the system performance monitor and log memory usage including the swap file. Then run poser and wait for the error message. Then look at the performance log and see what memory was doing, and check the admin logs for the error event. That might give you another clue.

Quote - Check your poser TEMP folder on the General preferences.

I've noticed that poser doesnt get rid of previously loaded textures even after selecting a new scene, it keeps everything on the TEMP folder (which is C: by default) so after working with a few figures this folder can grow to >10g, if it gets out of space, it comes up with the "No memory" message wich is missleading.

I've seen my TEMP folder grow as big as 30g after opening a few scenes in succesion, it only gets deleted if you close poser.

Where is the TEMP folder?

Quote -
Where is the TEMP folder?

Open Poser, go to the Edit menu, then General Preferences. Under "Misc" tab you can change the temp folder or check where is it pointing at.

Quote - > Quote -

Where is the TEMP folder?

Open Poser, go to the Edit menu, then General Preferences. Under "Misc" tab you can change the temp folder or check where is it pointing at.

Checked, there is no temp folder, only save files, python, and softwere update

Oh, that's because you're using Poser 7, I'm using poser pro.

Maybe someone using Poser 7 could give us a hand here.

Nope im using poser 6

i get that with several figures.  just dual core with xp and 1 gig.  so i set the shadow to render first so the shadow map is established in a file.  then i can render away, using reuse shadow maps.  no memory problems then.

maybe the problem with not deleting old textures can be solved by clicking the "reload texture map" button.  i haven't noticed that problem personally.

Poser6, form what I read some place, gets screwed up with multiple CPUs?
i.e. current multi-core CPUs, it can only assign "x" amount of meomory toot hem or some such, I've heard. Psoer problem, not OS or hardware problem.

And as noted, on my 64 bit 8gig RAM system I get this crap all the time,...but I render in Vue. Just very annoying when testing in Poser6.

Quote - Are the textures files on the external usb2 hard drive ?
Is Poser7 installed on the external hard drive ?

As you engage hi capacity render file (i guess you'll get a swap file of more 4GB), i think the problem come from USB2 port.

Do you know, the size of a file transfert is limited in USB2 port ?
You cannot transfer a 4GB file with USB2
why ?

it is a limit by external hard drive cache memory and OS system.

The limit of 4GB per file on an external drive is nothing to do with any limit by the hard drive cache or the OS. It is because of the file system on the drive. FAT32 has a 4GB limit. If the external drive is formatted with NTFS for example then there is effectively no limit.