This is what worked for me.

1. For dual core system, set threads to 2
2. Check "Use own passes"
3. Bucket size of 20 to 32
4. Check in Documents and Settings folder, Local Settings, Temp folder and clean out Poser 8's Texture cache. If I do three images in a night, there can be over 3 gigs of files in the cache taking up valuable hard drive space.
5. Try conservative settings for IDL. I use only 1 or 2 bounces at the most and usually only 190 samples. My machine only has 512 megs of RAM and 30 gigs of free hard disk space. So I have to stay conservative.
6. No AO on lights. No ray traced shadows. Only 1 raytrace bounce unless there is glass, water, or true reflective metals in my image. Everything I'd learned to do with AO and IBL lighting in P7 and PoserPro I've had to throw out the window. So keep lights simple. Two or 3 lights strategically placed can do the trick. I also don't use shadow maps over 512.
7. In Windows System, checking the size of your paging file and increase it if you can.

Even with all of this, I still have a couple of saved pz3 files from Poser Pro that I cannot render using IDL.

"A lonely climber walks a tightrope to where dreams are born and never die!" - Billy Thorpe, song: Edge of Madness, album: East of Eden's Gate

Weapons of choice:

Poser Pro 2012, SR2, Paintshop Pro 8