Since I had this exact issue with Poser 8  I uninstalled it
Now there is the same problem with Poser Pro..  Could there be files from Poser 8 still on My HD.?

or could it be something else? 

I cannot think of anything it could be.  Nothing else has changed.  If You look  back to the thread about SR1 I put several posts there, no one semed to want to help, so I just gave up..

Now here it is again..

 Actually I think people want to help, but you're not giving them much to work with. And first it was "only Poser 8 does this" - now the same thing happens with Poser 7.

i'm noy a Mac person but.. Snow Leopard is very new, right? Is it unthinkable that there's some bugs in that? Or are such things reserved for Poser?

NoelCan, You seem to have a very bad attitude.

I asked 3 times for more information, so that I could help you. There is the issue that you have interchangeably used the words "installed" and "running". You have not shown me what processes are active during the supposed slowdowns. You said it was necessary and sufficient to "uninstall" Poser 8, even if it wasn't running, in order to bring your system back to normal.

If you can't provide more information you will not fix the problem.

I'll ask again.

Boot your machine.

How does it work - slow or no? Launch whatever it is you launch on a Mac and show me all running processes - the equivalent of task manager. Then run Poser 8 and do it again. Then quit Poser 8 and do it again. Then reboot and do it again. Without that data, you are just another confused  non-technical person insisting on help but paying zero attention to the information that actual technical people are asking for.

Now you say the same is happening with Poser 7. So is suddently Poser 7 a bad program?

Snow Leopard is new here too. You have no right to believe there is no bug in Snow Leopard. Yet you won't let us see anything about Snow Leopard or your system - what's running - what's using CPU?

You say it is Poser. How do I know? I have no evidence you even can find the CPU usage per process.

I apologise if I am upsetting anyone..
All I Am try ing to do is get help..

just forget about it.  I will re format My HD and reload everything again.

NoelCan... my iMac uses nearly 200% CPU (i.e. each core close to 100%) when rendering in Poser Pro, and the screen you showed above is exactly what I see at the start of each render. In other words, that screenshot on its own provides no evidence that anything is wrong. (I missed the previous thread).

So what exactly is the problem you are getting? Is nothing rendering? If so, we would need to see your render settings to be able to give you any useful advice.

 I'm not sure I understand the issue either. It's rendering and all the CPU cores are busy. That's what it's supposed to do - it's using the available CPU to render the image.

Okay I will try to explain in more detail,..  The processor gets totally  blocked up (clogged up) for the entire duration of any render, no other software will work.  If it does it is Very slow..
For example it took about 15 seconds for the screenshot to be taken..  Internet browsing is almost impossible with certain sites ( including Rendo ) giving me timeout messages..
Can anyone understand the frustration  this causes..  And please don't tell Me I have a problem with My attitude.

Under preferences for poser pro, make sure you have it set to render as a separate process. Also use the render in background function. You are rendering in foreground, therefore you see the render progress bar. When you render in back ground, it is hidden or disappears after the textures are loaded and the actual rendering process starts.

Click in the image at the top and that is what poser pro render in back ground looks like on my inTel MacPro under OS X 10.6.1 looks like.

Somewhat unrelated issue, Mac OSX 10.6 - I notice that having my Runtime on a Network Attached Storage device, as opposed to a local drive will not render anything at all. I don't really care - just move what I need to the main drive before I render.

On another unrelated note, 10.6 is now "future-proof" at the expense of "backwards compatibility", so some "older" apps / legacy code compiled before the release of 10.6 requires Rosetta to be installed in order to work, which is NO LONGER installed by default on 10.6. Not faulting Poser specifically, because I've noticed this with Maya and Mudbox under 10.6.

In defense of the Windows users, in the future, please offer a more precise explanation of your problem in your initial post. Your screen shot of the Activity Monitor (equivalent of the Task Manager for the Windows people) in your original post is not complete and offers no useful information.

Do you have it set to render as a separate process?

Just above render as a separate process setting is the number of threads you are allowing it to take. What is that set at?

These are in the Poser Preferences

It is set to 4 for threads

And yes it is a separate process.

Here is a new screenshot.  Pay attention to FFrender64 

Poser crashed before completing the render,  this is a first for Me.  Frustrating to say the least.

I will shut down and come back later..

It's the same for me. Fastest possible rendering means slower everything else.

You have a choice... allow the render to use as much CPU as it can; or limit the resources available to it so that there is always something reserved for doing other stuff.

You could try reducing the number of threads to 3 or 2. This should reduce the CPU usage and other programs should become more responsive. I think.

Regarding the crash... how complex is your scene, and what bucket size are you using?

There's a trick to getting the optimum balance of CPU and memory use. Watch for disk activity that migt indicate excessive paging. On my iMac, which has a Core 2 Duo and 3GB of usable memory, I use only 2 processes and a bucket size of 32 (or 24 for a complicated scene). On a heavy render the machine's a bit sluggish, but usable for simple tasks. I find there's no point in trying to do anything memory-hungry or time-critical while a render's running...

Yes agree the next step is lower the threads as IsaoShi is stating and the bucket size looks to be 32, lower it to 16 or even 8 as a last resort.

One thing that also helped reduced my crashes while rendering is under render settings. Click on the preview pane and reduce the texture display to 128.

If you have a real complex scene that will not render in background, then send it to queue and it will render out.

This all said, I have yet to have a crash while rendering using P8. Problem is the library is broken and makes P8 useless especially under 10.6.1.

Even if PoserPro doesn't have a setting to control the priority of the external process, you can do it via whatever GUI tool MacOS provides or via the terminal using the "nice" command.

"Since I had this exact issue with Poser 8  I uninstalled it"

NoelCan, you said you had the exact same issue as zippy. Zippy's claim was that merely having P8 in his computer was enough to ruin it. He didn't even need to run Poser. You said you had "exactly" the same issue.

You don't seem to be saying that here.

Which "exact issue" are we trying to solve now? Previously, the words "installed" and "running" were used interchangeably and caused confusion. Now you seem to be using the word "rendering" as well.

Why am I unable to make you understand that you cannot claim the "exact" same CPU issue when in one case poser is merely installed, another running, and yet another rendering. There are completely different paths we take in these 4 possible scenarios.

A) Poser hogs my computer while rendering, not any other time.
B) Poser hogs my computer while running or rendering, not any other time.
C) Poser hogs my computer while running or rendering, or after I close it, but not after I reboot and have not run Poser.
D) Poser hogs my computer without running it at all.

There is a simple answer for A, and the others require investigation, but along different paths!

Which is your "exact" problem?

For those who have situation A on Windows, it is a simple matter to run it at below normal priority and everything is smooth.

Change the shortcut you use to launch poser, similar to this:

C:WINDOWSsystem32cmd.exe /c start "runbelownormal" /belownormal "C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser 8Poser.exe"

This was posted several times, and I'm happy to post it again.

Despite what other posters saids above, there is no reason at all to reduce the number of threads Poser uses or render in background. Just tell your OS how you want to handle Poser as not a CPU hog and all is fine.

I'm sorry I don't know how to do this in Snow Leopard, and if there is no way to do it, well, that's just one more thing about that OS that seems to be a problem.

bagginsbill

as I have stated before.  I can turn My  Computer on..  All is fine

I can run Any program except Poser.  All is fine

I run Poser Pro  .  All is fine until I start rendering,  then things start going wrong..

I QUIT Poser.  Things continue in the wrong position until I shut down..

Since I have uninstalled poser 8 and returned to using poser Pro this is My situation. (exact or otherwise)

You have seen My screenshots..  And at this  moment i cannot complete a render,  Poser Pro crashes..

My main intrest is Poser.  I have been using poser since version two and I have NEVER had a major problem..  If you look at My Smith Micro history You will see the only other problems I have had have been internet related and nothing to do with software. I have tried contacting apple to with no joy in that direction.  I have agreed with others that part of the problem could be Snow Leopard.  But in that scenario why are things going wrong ONLY after I start rendering....

I appreciate your time and effort and if I sometimes appear confusing it is because I am frustrated and annoyed.. And confused..

It seems like the Firefly renderer is still running in the background after you've killed Poser. And as such it will continue to use memory and possibly make your computer sluggish.

I say "seems" because I have no idea of how things work on a Mac, but I've had a few occasions where my Poser (both 7 and 8) has crashed during a render, and it turns out that although it is gone from the screen, the Firefly renderer, which is a separate process and therefor CAN continue on its own, is still running and chewing up memory.

And it's quite natural for a computer to become sluggish while Poser is RENDERING - it shouldn't be when Poser is merely running - sitting idle in the beackground or anything else. But of course it will use a lot of ressources to render - that's why so many people do overnight renders. Not because they necessarily takes all night, buut because you can then leave your computer and avoid getting frustrated from the lack of abilities to do other things.

I can browse the 'net just fine on my computer also while Poser is rendering, but it takes TIME. For some reason, especially Google searches takes an insane amount of time while Rosity works close to normal.

If I switch to Photoshop while Poser is rendering, I can do it, but everything is slow and sluggish, and any other program which also uses OpeGL, like my Blacksmith3D, is extremely slow - if it will run at all, I have long periods of "not responding" waiting time there.

So whenever I want anything more than a simple render to finish without me pulling my hair out, I start it and go do something else. Watch TV, go to bed, do laundry... go to work.. whatever will keep my mind off the fact that my computer is not really usable.

But it's not Poser's fault really. It's actually just being very very efficient and using every bit of CPU and RAM it can lay its paws on.

And in Windows you can set a process to "below normal" like BB showed. I don't know if you can do that on a Mac but I would think so, anything else seems illogical.

Oh and btw.. Whenever someone capitalizes Me and My... I'd say they have an attitude problem ;)

I agree it is possible that Firefly is running after closing Poser. This is the direction I wanted to investigate.

But I can't. I need to see a complete process list before, during, and after running Poser, and in the "after" case, when you've closed Poser but your system is still slow, I'm interested specifically in seeing what process is using near 100% CPU. If it is FFRender, then we go one direction. If it is something else, we go another direction. If nothing is using up CPU, then we go a third direction.

There is absolutely nothing interesting about seeing Poser or FFRender using a lot of CPU during rendering. This is not worth studying, and it is wrong/naive/ignorant to blame Poser for using your CPU well. It was my chief complaint before Poser 8 and that Poser did not use my CPU well - now it does 100% for real, and that's excellent. Either live with it, or learn to lower the process priority. It's a simple setting that changes how your OS manages CPU, and it isn't the program's responsibility to manage how it shares resources with other apps. That is the responsibility of the OS and the user.

If, after quitting Poser, it is still running and using lots of CPU, that's an interesting problem, but not particularly amazing, assuming it is FFRender that's still running, not Poser. I need to see this case.

Quote - I agree it is possible that Firefly is running after closing Poser. This is the direction I wanted to investigate.

On a crash of PoserPro under OSX 10.5 when rendering in back ground, FFrender can stay active. It happens randomly. A force quit of the FFRender app can solve the problem (free up memory and cpu cycles). It is extremely rare that I have to do a complete reboot after a force quit of FFRender.  But I have a boat load of ram compared to the OP. Even if PoserPro is more unstable under 10.6.x because of the changes in how 10.6.x handles memory allocations, I have yet to have to crash and leave FFrender still running (yet).

As you can attest to BB, IDL brings so much to the table, I am waiting until SR1 before getting back into full complex scenes. The ease to get shadows that look real along a hip-thigh line when the character is sitting, under chairs, tables, etc is truly remarkable.

To ease up memory cut the texture like I posted and also flip to Sreed, before you render in PoserPro. I am of the opinion these will not be required when we can use P8 again on Mac's running 10.6.x.

Quote - I run Poser Pro  .  All is fine until I start rendering,  then things start going wrong..

I QUIT Poser.  Things continue in the wrong position until I shut down..

Ok. Open a Terminal window and run a command like this: **top -s 5 -F -o cpu -O vsize
(I'm on Tiger, but I hope Snow Leopard has "top" installed as standard.) It will display (and then update every 5 seconds or so) a table like this:

** Processes:  61 total, 4 running, 57 sleeping... 208 threads            16:19:53
Load Avg:  1.04, 1.05, 1.05     CPU usage:  49.8% user, 3.0% sys, 47.3% idle
SharedLibs: num =    0, resident =    0B code,    0B data,    0B LinkEdit
MemRegions: num =  8242, resident =  632M + 17.8M private,  204M shared
PhysMem:   293M wired,  219M active,  928M inactive, 1.41G used, 1.59G free
VM: 7.94G +    0B   41784(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE
  471 Poser 8    100.1%  2:17:28  11   157  2290   412M- 99.1M   438M-  962M
   63 WindowServ   1.1%  2:45.82   4   324   594  10.5M+ 71.7M- 67.4M   278M
  499 top          1.1%  0:00.23   1    18    20   996K   796K  1.45M  27.0M
  486 Terminal     0.8%  0:01.24   6   136   178  2.81M  12.9M  21.4M   237M
  197 firefox-bi   0.7% 11:03.75  11   192   952   139M  45.2M   165M   432M
    0 kernel_tas   0.4%  2:13.58  47     2   444  5.62M     0B   213M  1.44G
..... and lots more .....

There'll be a list as long as the window, probably. Interesting values are: - the CPU usage on the second line

• the PhysMem and VM lines which tell you how your memory is being used and whether there's a lot of pageing happening.
• the process by process CPU use in the %CPU column
• the process by process RSIZE (real memory used) and VSIZE (total virtual size) values

This is much what the Activity Monitor is doing, but in a much handier cut-n-paste-able form. In my example above you can see that Poser 8 is being very busy on one CPU (at near enough 100% - it's running Wardrobe Wizard) but that the other CPU is more or less idle, and that there's plenty of spare memory.

 NoelCan,

my blind guess would be that your computer is low on physical memory. CPU load doesn't bring a modern OS to its knees, high I/O load and especially memory paging however can severely impact performance, especially when switching between applications. After quitting applications that used a lot of memory, it will also take the system a while to get back on track with paging the other applications back from disk to physical memory, which would explain why your system is slow for a while even after quitting Poser. Looking at the Activity Monitor screen shots you posted, my guess would be that your computer has 1GB RAM? In that case, you should consider adding more RAM to your computer, it will make not only Poser but the entire system feel more responsive. I upgraded both my Macs from 2GB to 4GB a while ago and it made a significant difference.

Another thing to check for is if you're rendering large textures without filtering. Since Poser then cannot use the texture cache nearly as efficiently as with filtered textures, it will cause significantly higher I/O load.

Snow Leopard may worsen the situation because since most applications that come with it run in 64bit, there is the extra overhead of keeping all system frameworks in memory twice (32bit and 64bit instance) as well as programs running in 64bit using a bit more memory for larger address pointers.

noel, I've also been running OS 7/8/9/X since poser 2.  some of the respondents don't know that, in OS X, the standard way to limit RAM usage on an app is within the app prefs, not via any system pane or pref.  just a few requests; please post screenshots of:

•  "about this mac/more info/memory"
•  "about this mac/more info/graphics/displays"
•  "activity monitor/system memory" with poser and firefox (stefan is referring to page-ins/page-outs above)
•  "activity monitor/system memory" with firefox et al., prior to starting poser

My HD has been re-formatted and everything on My computer has been tested

I have re-installed Poser8

I do understand about rendering slowing other activities, but with Poser 8 this seems excessive..

• it's using alotta physical RAM (as opposed to disk)
• page-ins are not excessive, but page-outs are almost nil
• firefox is using too much RAM IMVHO
• poser 8 could actually use up to 195% of CPU if allowed, as bill et al. have mentioned

just a few more questions: - poser 8 is installed from DVD?

• poser 8 is located on imac's internal HD (I don't recall if those things can have sevl. internal HDs)

please post: - above poser 8 render if possible, or preview img

• screencap of poser 8 render settings
• screencap of  poser 8 python script/partners/D3d/firefly render

Here is a completed render

Poser 8 was installed from a Backup DVD.  Poser 8 was a downloaded upgrade version.
I then installed to  8.0.0.10199

All of My Poser files are on internal drive.. Only one internal and one external for backups.

Here is screenshot of render prefs

I don't understand your python screen request..  I am a little uncomfortable with spreading My HD all over the internet..

I think this is what You requested..

those render settings are moderate.  if your main goal here is to have quicker web-browsing whilst waiting for FFRender to finish, then do what some of them said above, e.g. cut threads to 2 in poser.  it will still look like way more than that in activity monitor.  the other noel said to use terminal.app with "nice" command, possibly to decrease poser priority or to increase firefox priority, but I dunno how to do that.

Ok thanks for the help.. 

But it is not just web browsing that is the issue,  like I said earlier (maybe in another thread)  I activated My screenshot and it took more than 10 seconds to capture an image.

If I want to use other software such as Corel Painter it is almost impossible..

Like I also said earlier..  I am on My Knees praying that SR1 eliminates these problems..

And also someone else has stated  "Perhaps Poser 8 was released too soon.."

Thanks once again

it may be that they only had (as developers) approx. 3 mos. to learn snow leopard.  that's when the first betas were out IIRC.  we'll hope for the best.  I checked CS4 performance prefs, but all they've got is "limit RAM usage".  yer option now (poser) is to cut threads down, unless stefan or the other noel will give us the syntax of the "nice" cmd in re: decreasing poser priority.

Miss Nancy

My Daughter in law has been helping Me..  Formatting and re-booting My HD, re- installing Most of My software.  She has also communicated with former colleagues at Apple..  What I have now is just about the best I can get..  She did use Terminal while I was watching,  what she did in there I do not know..

SR1..  Please be good..!

I am using Poser 8 and Poser 7 on a Mac Pro 8 core with OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. Here is what I know, or think I know:

• Poser 7 often crashes during render under Snow Leopard.

• Poser 8 doesn't crash during render, in fact renders much faster than P7.

• Poser 8 has some problems finding library content under Snow Leopard, and will sometimes crash when you refresh the library or category. Smith Micro knows about this.

• Since P7 works well as far as the library is concerned (and lacks the tiny-icon problem that P8 has) but crashes during render, I currently use P7 to set up sceness and use the library, then shift to P8 for final tweaking and rendering. This is not optimal, but works for me until they issue the first service release.

• In P8, the renders are SUPPOSED to use most or all of your Mac's processing power. That's why P8 renders so much faster. P7 didn't use all of a computer's processing power to best advantage. In P7, when one core finished its work, it took a break instead of helping the other cores. P8 keeps all the cores busy at nearly full capacity until the render is finished. This is a good thing.

• Moving out of Poser and doing other computer work while a render is in process is asking for trouble. I've got 8 cores churning away when I render, all near 100%, and I don't dare do more than glance at my e-mail while that's going on. I suppose I could tell Poser to use fewer threads to render, but then I get slow renders again. I'm in the habit of doing something else (off the computer) during a long render.

I tried poser 8 with more aggressive render settings and IDL enabled (not using 10.6.x) so that it would take more than a few seconds to try stuff before the render finished.  I found that firefox was a bit sluggish (not really serious, e.g. still able to edit this during a render).  the cmd-4 screenshots taken when poser was rendering were instantaneous, whether with 2 or 6 threads in poser.  thus I think there was something wrong with the implementation of P8XSR0 regarding 10.6.1 that wasn't wrong with the implementation of P8XSR0 regarding earlier OS.

Miss Nancy, you are muddying the waters, I think. All this talk of render setting and threads is non-responsive.

Read the issue Noel has - pay attention to this =====> After closing Poser, he says his system is still slow.

Not rendering. After *** CLOSING *** the Poser application.

I am now asking for the 7th time (and the last time I'll ask, I assure you) to show me the process list AFTER Poser is supposedly closed, not rendering, and the system is still slow.

I'm not interested in investigating system CPU use during rendering. This is not a problem and all he has to do is lower the process priority and everything will run smoothly.

Miss Nancy and bagginsbill

Since My HD has been re-formatted and software re-installed the issue about  My computer being slow after quitting Poser has gone away. MY adorable Daughter in law came across and spent all night working on My M/C..  She went straight to work from here..

I do not think that the issues have been trivial and I still feel that Poser 8 may have been released too soon..  I am not the only person in Poser Forums thinking this..

SR1 is at the end of the piece of string I had in My pocket..  Can someone please find it and give it back..!

glad to know it got sorted out.  according to ratscloset, a bunch of items were fixed in sr1.  but apparently bill erred on at least two counts in this thread:

• he didn't read the part in this thread where OP said it was slowing everything else down DURING render (no worries there; let it use 195% of CPU if it can)
• he doesn't know if it's possible to increment or decrement priority on processes like these in sow leopard

I hadda make it bold and underline so it wouldn't be missed this time :lol:
I didn't read some other thread where some other erroneous assumptions may have been made.

Thanks for the help Miss Nancy..  You have been very gracious and helpful..

This Old Man is grateful..

And thanks to all other who have contributed..

ROLL ON SR1

Attached Link: Apple Snow Leopard and Poser Pro CPU issue

Poser 8 is re-installed  8.0.0.10199

Every thing is great..  I thank everyone who helped..

I start by trying out loading different poses from My library  C.R.A.S.H.

So We al know this is an issue to be handled in SR1 ,  so I move on.

Restart Poser 8 ,  I try to render the default starting document,  about 25% complete when IT
C.R.A.S.H.E.S.

Don't know where to go from here..

 Right after it crashes look in the console log in two places. 1.) all messages and 2.) Crash Reporter down the left side, last entry should be the most current entry. Then start a dialog with Smith Micro support and explain what you were doing when it happened and include part of the crash reporter down to the top of the first thread. If they don't know about your issue they can't address it in SR1.

But dollars to donuts it has to do with Grand Central Dispatch and how memory is allocated under 10.6.x compared to 10.5x and before. P8 needs some internal code adjustment to work correctly under 10.6.x. But SM needs to know of all instances. Yours might be different then somebody else's. Don't assume SM knows-has found all the issues!!!!!!

Hi Noel,

I write software for a living. C++ stuff for a research group, and it can be a real PITA to find bugs.

Whenever someone sends me data that causes trouble, I have a small number of things I do to try and pinpoint the problem. I can't really help you remotely, and it sounds like BB is a good resource, but here are some times which might help you at least find a working solution while you await SR1.

1) KISS - Keep it as simple as possible. In one of your original pictures, you showed that you had two cores or CPUs both of which were completely MAXed out. When tracking down the source of a problem, you should always drop back to a low, safe place. A good first step would have been reduce to 1 thread only. If that works, step up to two. If 1 is good and 2 is bad...well, you have an answer:)

Since you only have 2 processors, if you are going to be using your computer while the render is being produced, you should leave 1 for yourself.

2) Memory - Ugh, memory sucks! And poser sucks it up even faster than we can buy it:P I'm guessing that your 2 GB is borderline sufficient. Firefox was eating over 300 megs, I think, with Poser using up over 800 and probably other things doing even more. If you are on a machine with limited resources (and today, 2GB is limited, sadly enough), you should be careful what you use. Try opening up that Activity Monitor and watch the memory levels while poser is running. Also, watch your machine's total memory consumption. Once you exceed a certain percentage of total memory, your machine's performance will degrade.

My little linux desktop had 2 gigabytes of RAM running a 64 bit version of the OS which happily used up every bit, and tried to use more. The end result was not even being able to type in commands at an opened ssh session (or a terminal session on the machine itself). It wasn't unusual for the machine to have lost critical services at that point, leaving a hobbled machine even after the process was killed. Reboot was the only way to recover the machine if it was starved for too long.

3) Whenever you report problems to a technical minded person, information is key. So, it's best to be as thorough as possible when describing the problem. It might take longer to type, but it will probably mean a solution will be found much more quickly.

Reformatting and reinstall is not a very meaningful solution these days. If that fixes anything, it was probably a settings issue for which there are much easier solutions (usually just deleting a single file, if you know the right one). Otherwise, it was a corrupted file, which means your hard drive might be sick, and the real problem is just a few turns away....

Back in the old days, Dynamic libraries could be introduced that caused programs to crash because old files were written on top of new ones. Windows and Mac both use a registry of sorts, and those too can become corrupted through various ways. However, modern versions of the OSs are mature enough to avoid most of those problems, and the rest can usually be fixed through far less drastic measures.

Hope this helps:)

Thanks  **mamba-negra ** Most all of the tech work is done by an Apple tech  (Daughter in law)
Now SR1 is here I do sincerely hope that Most issues are addressed.  I am a software USER..
I have not even pretended to be anything else..

Saying that.  I consider myself proficient in writing and de-bugging programs for CNC Lathes..
That was My full time job for over 14 years..