does the preview render settings affect how the final render will come out? Reason I am asking is because I notice a difference in between the SreeD and OpenGL when I am trying to click on an item and attempting to move it. With the OpenGL the program seems to hesitate whether I am trying to load an item or even posing...sometimes leaving me with a whiteboard effect that indicates that Poser has stopped working, but if I leave it for a minute resumes with normal operation.

Vista 32 bit. 4 GB ram

 The preview render settings don't effect the final render, however, I'd check your OpenGL settings on your video card.  Do you know what video card you have?

If you're not comfortable tweaking your video card settings, I would recommend switching to a SreeD preview.  Some people swear by the OpenGL, but I say, use what's easiest for you :)

ATI Radeon 3650. As far as I know, I've downloaded and installed the latest driver from the website. I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

I have Radeon cards on my laptops, and Poser has always hated those. Now, my main laptop is absolutely capable of running Poser, memory and processor-wise, but that ATI card.. just doesn't work properly. I have to switch to sreed on those. My main computer has an NVidia card, which Poser seems to prefer.

I know that doesn't help much, but switching to SreeD may be your option here. 

It does I purchased a Toshiba laptop T3400 and apparently the only way to get the figure circle to show up is to switch to SreeD. I only wish it had a big enough hard drive to fit the entire growing contents of my runtime...hey I can dream can't I   heheheheh

 External hard drives are not that expensive ;)  You can get a Western Digital 1TB external for a little over $100 right now, and that's a LOT of space.  (I'm not even going to say "It should be enough".  After the years of "collecting" I've done, I've almost filled up one of those on just backups.)

Quote - I have Radeon cards on my laptops, and Poser has always hated those. Now, my main laptop is absolutely capable of running Poser, memory and processor-wise, but that ATI card.. just doesn't work properly. I have to switch to sreed on those. My main computer has an NVidia card, which Poser seems to prefer.

I know that doesn't help much, but switching to SreeD may be your option here. 

It's not just Poser, it's ATI and OpenGL in general.
ATI cards are far more suited for games, and have pretty weak OpenGL support all around. Aside from their FireGL cards, which are their equivalent to Nvidia's Quadro line.
But you can find the same ATI complaints from people using them for all sorts of OpenGL programs.
Simply put, the ATI's are more for gaming and DirectDraw (DirectX), while Nvidia has far better support for OpenGL (as well as DX...)

Quote -  External hard drives are not that expensive ;)  You can get a Western Digital 1TB external for a little over $100 right now, and that's a LOT of space.  (I'm not even going to say "It should be enough".  After the years of "collecting" I've done, I've almost filled up one of those on just backups.)

One thing about external hard drives - they tend to fail quicker than internal hard drives, and I'm convinced that's due to heat. So when shopping for one you should  try to find one that comes in a good, well-ventilated encasement, and make sure it has plenty of air flow around it.

And as far as external drives go, if you're putting important stuff on one, you really shouldn't buy the cheapest one you can find particularly if they're over 500 GB.

Oh, that's not the cheapest those go ;)  That's just the deal going on now at Amazon (I'll look for the link later)
My point is, prices are going down, and it's a LOT easier to get an external.

FWIW, I've had a Western Digital MyBook for well over a year, and the only problem I have is, once in a while, if I'm not using it RIGHT NOW, it will go into sleep mode.  Easily fixable by turning it back on, just like with your computer ;)  The one I brought with me to Florida is a 500GB one, works great, the ventilation is really great, and I've never had a problem ;)

They're made a lot better now than they were a few years ago.  And, I'm really grateful for that.

Well I have 2 320 GB Western Digital MyBooks and I'd swear by those. One is almost 4 years old, the other only about two, and both are fine. And they've been getting regularly wiped and reformatted and having hugs chunks of data written to them on a regular basis.

I know many other people too who use and abuse MyBooks and say the same things. For what they are, they're probably about the best you can get.

Stay away from Seagate externals though. For that matter stay away from Seagate, period.

Quote -

Stay away from Seagate externals though. For that matter stay away from Seagate, period.

I wholeheartedly agree with your whole post, but especially this.

Unless you're planning a metal bonfire.  In that case, take all the store has, and try to set the hottest fire possible :lol: