I have Tiger (10.4.11) on the main drive and Leopard (10.5.8) on an external.

Poser 8 on Tiger is sluggish, lots of spinning beachballs ... (but rendering is really fast!)
Poser 8 runs well on Leopard.
Just as example, opening a given P8 file on Tiger: 48s, on Leopard 28s.

I have always found Poser 7 less responsive than Poser 6 on Tiger.

(PowerMac G5 2.7GHz Dual Processor, 8Gb RAM)

Thanks for the info, A_Sunbeam. I'm on Tiger and getting quite frustrated with the continual beachball-spinning delays in the Preview almost every time I change anything. The Material Room is even worse. Using a non-textured preview mode helps a bit, but not much.

(For PC users' benefit, the spinning beachball is the Mac equivalent of the egg timer).

Looking at the Activity Monitor, Poser 8 uses much more CPU than 7 or Pro, peaking every time a change is made, even just moving a light or a camera. I think Poser 8 must be doing lots of new things in the background.

Thanks for confirming my results - I often wonder if it's just me!

Hmm, anyone tried it on a pure intel machine and Tiger?

in re: the spinning pizzas in poser 8, just 3 questions:

1. was the version of poser 8 the downloaded version?
2. was the poser 8.app patched?
3. what is the final size of the poser 8 folder in applications folder?

Quote - in re: the spinning pizzas in poser 8, just 3 questions: 1. was the version of poser 8 the downloaded version?

1. was the poser 8.app patched?
2. what is the final size of the poser 8 folder in applications folder?

I bought the CD version
Patch was applied
on Tiger the Poser 8 folder is 4.93 Gb
on Leopard it's bigger because I've added runtimes, 5.84Gb

Quote - Hmm, anyone tried it on a pure intel machine and Tiger?

Yes, me! First generation 20-inch Intel Core Duo iMac.

Quote - in re: the spinning pizzas in poser 8, just 3 questions: 1. was the version of poser 8 the downloaded version?

1. was the poser 8.app patched?
2. what is the final size of the poser 8 folder in applications folder?

1. yes
2. yes
3. can't say until I get home later.

jeez, this was already at the bottom of the page today!  well, anyway, sunbeam, what happens when ya unmount and turn off the leopard disk, then try to run poser 8.app from main HD of G5 tower? is any software like "little snitch" installed?

p.s. whilst P8 may not a 64-bit app, leopard and snow leopard are both able to access 8 GB. altho one would question how one could jam all those into a G5.  4 slots at 512 MB each would be default IIRC.

Quote - jeez, this was already at the bottom of the page today!  well, anyway, sunbeam, what happens when ya unmount and turn off the leopard disk, then try to run poser 8.app from main HD of G5 tower? is any software like "little snitch" installed?

?little snitch?
I installed Poser on the main drive (Tiger) and it was only after finding it rather sluggish that I decided to instal it on Leopard as well.

Quote -
p.s. whilst P8 may not a 64-bit app, leopard and snow leopard are both able to access 8 GB. altho one would question how one could jam all those into a G5.  4 slots at 512 MB each would be default IIRC.

This G5 has eight slots all capable of taking 1Gb.

Activity Monitor:
On Tiger:
Poser 7: real memory 192Mb virtual memory 680 Mb threads 1
poser 8: real 153Mb  virtual 818Mb  threads 10
on Leopard:
poser 7: real 205Mb virtual 1.2Gb threads 2
Poser 8: real 190Mb virtual 1.32Gb threads 11

o.k., it's quitting time here, but what I'm inferring is that the interface may be slow in tiger on a g5 (32-bit) using a 32-bit app and a 32-bit OS, but that it may also be slow on intel imacs, perhaps with 64-bit OS/CPU.  unfortunately there's gonna be no commonality in VRAM nor GPU between those.  all prefs/preview display at default settings?

Quote - all prefs/preview display at default settings?

Yes. But undo reduced to 12 and 6 for render cache.
What's the "thread" number mean, by the way? It is larger in Poser 8.

The "Threads" parameter specifies the number of buckets that are rendered concurrently.

I have seen a recommendation to set this to twice the number of processor cores on your computer. I'm not sure why.... maybe each core can efficiently handle two rendering threads.

o.k., then sunbeam's machine is the best test case, if P8 GUI is slow on the version installed on internal HD of machine under tiger, but if P8 GUI is fast on the version installed on external HD of machine under leopard.  if true, is the version installed on internal HD of machine under tiger trying to access remote/external runtimes, and does the version installed on external HD of machine under leopard have various items added to its runtime and is not trying to access remote/external runtimes?

p.s. pirated snow leopard versions have been avail. fr some time, but as usual would advise against downloading nor installing any of them.

Version of P8 on Tiger has only the installed runtime and does not call on runtimes on any other part of the computer.

Version of P8 on Leopard has other runtimes within the Poser 8 folder and does not call on runtimes on any other part of the computer.

o.k., then, it may be excessive page-ins/page-outs (activity monitor/disk activity), which may be a problem for the apple techs.  however, when running P8/tiger, try activity monitor/network.  probably nothing, but might as well check it, unless already mentioned above.  one of our cousins mentioned it's been cool there, hence I reckon machine is not overheating nor has bad RAM seating.