I have a relatively newer computer running on Windows 7, but I find using Vickie 4.2 slows it down quite a bit--to a crawl really when working with her. I try to do simply things like save a figure or comfort an article of clothing to her and it takes forever. My computer has an AMD Anthon 11 quad core processor that runs at 2.8 GHTZ and has 6 GB or RAM 3 memory, but still is dragging using poser.

Any suggestions to speed things up?

Although it seems unrelated, what are you using for your preview, Screed or OpenGl?

Bill

Are you using 32bit or 64bit Windows?

Your 6 GIG Ram would be wasted using a 32bit OS, since you only be able to address 3.5 GIG.... I can only recommend to upgrade to 64bit. It runs much more stable and faster... if you are using Poser Pro that would be a real performance boost anyway..

6GB RAM would be more then needed for such a simple scene.
And the CPU is more then OK too.

So we need a lot more informatioin.

What version of Poser?
Windows 32-or 64 bit?
Graphics card?
Did you ever do a system clean-up?
Did you ever do a defrag?

PP2012 would have to fly on that CPU and RAM.

I recently posted a question regarding the RAM I should get for a new system and the basic answer was "As much as you can".

RAM tends to be like money and sex.  There's no such thing as too much.

Correct Sam, but with only one V4 and some clothing, his system should react like fine wine, and render in nanoseconds with that CPU and 6GB RAM.

There is such a thing as too much when you stop treating it as a simplistic question. RAM is not free. You pay for it. Paying for RAM when you already have enough is not effective. If your OS is 32-bit, does it make sense to buy 64 GB of RAM? No it does not.

If your scene renders while never consuming more than 3 GB of RAM, does it make sense to run out and buy 64 GB of RAM, in the hope that it will render faster? No it does not.

How about 123,456,789,012,345 GB of RAM? Is that a good idea? How about if you spend your entire income on more RAM, will that help you render faster? No it will not.

When RAM is free, then you can say there's no such thing as too much.

I really don't mind people not agreeing with me. What I mind is telling some poor user struggling to pay the rent that there is some benefit to getting more RAM no matter how much you have now. That's not true.

Correct BB
That is why I think something else must be going on.
Waiting for more info from the poster.

What version of Poser?

I'm using Poser 8

Windows 32-or 64 bit?

64 bit

Graphics card?

NVidea Geo force

Did you ever do a system clean-up?

No.

 Did you ever do a defrag?

No

Poser8 is a 32 bit application. Adding RAM will not help you in the GUI.
Rendering in a seperate process could help speed up render times if you have a heavy scene. Set it in Posers General preferences.

First do a system cleanup.
I Use all of them but try :

• CCleaner, a free app,  use the Ccleaner and then the registry cleaner
• Glary Utilities, a free app, one click solution
• Winutilities, a free app, one click solution

I would advice this last one to start with:

• Advanced system care free, version 4.2 is the latest,  from iobit, a free app, one click solution, Select=> Deep clean, select all options exept defrag, and let it Scan and repair. (Small arrow in the Scan button)

Download and install; Smartdefrag 2.2, also free, and from iobit.
Install and let it do its thing in the background.

And please, do not install the toolbars.
It seems everone wants us to have more and more toolbars, oh boy.

Also, and please say no.
You are not running anything from Norton?? Are you???

No Norton. I had it originally as a trial version that came with my computer, but I'm pretty sure I removed it all.

Quote - RAM tends to be like money and sex.  There's no such thing as too much.

Though they do seem to be mutually exclusive

Quote - Graphics card?

NVidea Geo force

Check your preview settings, with nvida should be OpenGL, pbuffer, and try both with and without hardware shading.

Bill

With Poser 8 you don't need more memory, it's not 64 bit so it will never use more than 4 GB. More RAM isn't likely to help you.

Also, among the things which are too slowly you did not mention rendring but saving the figure, loading stuff, conform a figure. When I had Poser 8 it did not feel slow, and my system then was a dual core with 4 GB RAM IIRC. 

Windows 7 has a defrag task running regulary per default, IIRC.

Is your hard disk old or very full? Did you change the number of undo levels?

I'm just guessing at the moment. 

I never changed the number of undo levels. My hard disk is probably about two years old. I don't think its failing or anything--hope not. Its a tetrabit HDD so there should be plenty of free storage space.

FWIW, I agree with yer, BB.  Didn't realize P8 is a 32 bit app.

@ Frisco - Have you ever defragged the drive?  It can make a major difference to your speed. 

My HDD is defragmented automatically once a week. I cleaned the drive and defragmented it again ( I think it was last done on Wednesday.) I also did a system restore just in case there was a virus problem or something (sometimes that helps) so I'll try and use poser again a bit later tonight and see if it works faster.

Not sure if it matters, but I loaded a ton of morphs in the Vickie 4.2 figure--basically every morph she has (something like 400 of them) I loaded in her. I'm not sure if that would slow things down or not.

I'm puzzled....must be something wrong with my computer.  I've used Norton for the last 4 years and have had zero problems in running Poser 7, 8, Pro 2010, and Pro 2012.

Well, the program is running a lot faster now. I think maybe there was something else messing things up, but the system restore seems to have solved the problem.

On a side note, I despise Norton. I find it to be a resourse hog. I'd like to get an anti virus program thats better, but I don't know which one would be a good option. I definitely won't go with Norton.

Uninstall all you can find from norton.
Then do a registry cleaning with Advanced system care free 4.2
Install : Windows security essentials as anti virus. free from Microsoft.

Live happy ever after.

for those running 32bit apps on a 32bit or 64bit Windows, I wrote a tutorial on getting the most out of your RAM. It's around here in the Vue and in the Poser tuts section, and on my own website (the rendo tuts are pointers to my web). PDF download available.

running PPro2010 & Vue9 on i7-990X @4GHz / 24Gb ram / 17Tb disk / nVidia 560Ti

Poser does not require/make use of large amounts of memory. the benefit is being able to have Poser, Photoshop, Zbrush, C4D, Firefox with 20 tabs, etc open at the same time and your computer not slowing to a crawl when you tab between them because its swapping data back/forth from virtual memory.

16 gigs of decent DDR3 (4x4gb) can be had for ~$80 now. thats dirt cheap.  8 gigs (2x4gb) ive seen as low as $35.

theres really no excuse, if youre upgrading, not to get 8-16 gigs.

i wouldnt bother investing in DDR2 right now since it costs 2-4x as much as DDR3.  youd be better off putting the money youd spend on DDR2 towards a DDR3 platform.

^of course the above assumes youre running a 64-bit OS.