Hi all. I want to start working with 3D and Poser seems a place to start. Any tips regarding a system. Please assume that I'm a newb and almost totally ignorant of most anything regarding PC's. Any advice would be helpful, thanks.

Ignore the system specs from Smith Micro. They are the bare minimum - only sufficient to make your system crawl and hang and frustrate you.
Buy the best graphics card you can afford and the most memory your operating system can handle.
A dual-screen setup is very nice. Don't know how I managed before, but I did, after a fashion.
Make sure your machine is well  cooled if you upgrade an older system. You may need an extra fan.
Disk space - you'll need lots. Once you get hooked you'll start accumulating content - figures, models, skins, props, texture images, etc.. Even if you stick mostly to free stuff from here, Daz, AdamThwaites, ShareCG etc, you'll soon need an external hard drive.

Welcome to the madness.

What have you got now ?

For Poser or Daz Studio I suggest a fairly fast dual or quad core 64 bit processor (2.x - 3.x ghz)  with 4 gb of memory and a 160 - 250 GB hard disk. DVD drive of course for backups , loading software etc.
A moderate graphics card which supports Opengl 1.6 or higher.   
64 bit processor to position you for the future few years.

Daz Studio is similar to Poser but there is a fREE version , so you can start and decide if you like the hobby without spending much money.

.

Welcome to our world.  I would advise you start slowly and attemp the tutorial in the manual.  It will get you familiarized with the setup.  At the same time, peruse the forum for added information, tips and tutes.  But prepare for a rather steep learning curve.  When you inquire how to perform certain tasks or techniques, don't forget to let us know which Poser version you are using.  Very important, each version has a unique workflow and approach.

Again, welcome to our insane worl!

with RAM cheap go with 8 gig, I have 8 gig and it makes poser 8 fly!

You're gonna get loads of different advice on this, so here's mine.....

Quad core processor or the new i7 if money's no object.
64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate
9000 series Nvidia graphics [9800GT is a good choice]
8 Gig RAM
3 x 500 gig HD's with 2 in Raid 1 array and 1 for storage. The spare can be used for back ups etc, no need for an external drive.
Antec gaming case with all the fans, really excellent cooling.

That's it, this set up will also do if you decided that you wanted Vue 8 as well or something else, because Vue is proper 64 bit application so you can use all that RAM up there.

I have an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00 GHz, Processor speed 2.92 GHz, 512 RAM Widnow XP operating system.

I don't know what my graphics card is currently but I'm not interested in movies just images. And I know I need to upgrade my system, I havent really done anything with it since 2003.

And if you havent already - grab all the Mil figure bases from daz now cause they are FREE .... just incase Daz decides to stop making them free soon ..... i didnt see an end date to that offer ... but you never know.

Expiration of the DAZ freebies is 2015 IIRC.

:-)

Fast processor
Lots of memory
Big hard drive
External hard drives (for file storage)

And you don't need a high end graphic card for Poser.  Save yourself several hundred dollars and buy a cheap card. That's all you need.

You don't need to get carried away.  I run Poser 8 on a three year old Core Duo laptop with 2 GB and I'm happy with the performance.  Prior to that I ran Poser 7 on a 1.6 GHz single core laptop, and it worked fine, although I wished it were a little faster.

Poser 8 is 32 bit, so more than 3 GB Ram doesn't do much for you.   Poser Pro will do 64 bit rendering. 

Get a big hard drive, though-a 1.5 TB can be had for less than $120.

What WandW said is true...  I have multiple machines. The one I use the most with my Support work is an Acer Vista Home Premium Machine (AMD 64X2 4200+ 2.20 GHz, 4 GB RAM(came with two, I changed it to four because of Vista Issues) The Video is on board nVidia 6150SE

It handles Poser fine.

I do have what I call my powerhouse machine to do my graphics work and it is at the other end of the Spectrum, but I do not seem to get enough time actually do any of that work and do not turn the machine on, sometimes for days.

So, the bottom line.. If your OS runs good and you have the Stats, you can run Poser.. Renders may take longer, you may not be able to use all the OpenGL Preview Features, but your Renders will look  the same when they finish.

If you are looking for System Specs...

Processor first, RAM second, Drive Speed and Space third, then Video. For the Drives, Fast Access is important with all Graphic Programs. I use Raptors for the Programs and other drives for my Data.

          Ok will try this again.....................is there a cd, or pdf that I can get that will explain to me how to open and use Poser 8.........has 10 million ideas for it and want to put them into practice..........any help would be appreciated very very much....thanks in advance.........

The manuals are in pdf form and are part of your download. Look for Poser Reference Manual and PoserPython Methods Manual. They are in your main runtime where you have installed the program. There is also Poser Tutorial Manual in the Tutorials directory. If you are on a PC the path should be something like this  X:/Smith Micro/Poser8/Tutorials. X is your install drive. The first two manuals are in Smith Micro and the other one in Tutorials. Don't know about Mac.
Hope this helps
pdg