I have upgraded my computer to 64-bit (Win7). It is a very high end machine with 64 megs of RAM, and a high end video card.

But now I'm very confused. I can buy poser 2012 now, fairly inexpensively at Amazon. I have read that it is 64-bit. And it seems the only thing that I would not get in 2012 would be the "fitting room" of 2014. That was the only feature of poser 2014 that I have been interested in, because I started using the "Dawn" figure and I have thousands of closing items for V4…

I am no longer a content creator,  so I have no need for morph creation, or morph transfers (unless it also transfers the morphs to the same clothing after 'fitting' it to Dawn. I have never used the cloth room  or the hair room-ever. 

I know that is a separate question,  but it is a worry I have in upgrading. I'm also concerned about my materials (like parrotdolphin's) that work with poser 9 would not work in  2012  or 2014 -I read something confusing about no backward compatibilty with multiple nodes of materials.

 I need to decide if I should purchase  poser 2012  now,  or wait until there's another sale for poser 2014 .

thank you for any suggestions,  or opinions !

Here's the product page for Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014.  They added a few other features as well as the fitting room.

http://poser.smithmicro.com/poser10-poserpro2014/

I'm not sure how the Game Dev Pro 2014 upgrades work.  It might be cheapest if you buy the inexpensive Pro 2012, then upgrade to the Pro 2014 Game Dev version, which is on sale through the end of August.  :unsure:  Don't rush out and do that just because I've mused about it here, though!  :lol:  I'm not sure what the upgrade parameters are, so you would want specifics on that.

The lack of backwards compatibility pertains to the new "compound" nodes they've ntroduced with P10/Pro14.  When a material using a compound node is loaded into an older version, Poser ignores that part of the shader.  If you don't use compound nodes or create versions of materials without them, there shouldn't be any backwards compatibility issues with P10/Pro14 materials.

They added physics simulations for soft body physics, but I guess if you've never used the hair room or cloth room, you'll probably not need to calculate a physics simulation.

If you've ever used the Morphing Tool and become frustrated with the constant issues with keeping your selection and not accidentally morphing another target... imho 2014 is worth the price just for getting rid of that issue. The Morphing Tool is now the greatest tool for fixing just about anything in Poser.

old P9 shaders will load in PP2014, but they may preview or render differently.

Quote - I have never used the cloth room  or the hair room-ever.   I need to decide if I should purchase  poser 2012  now,  or wait until there's another sale for poser 2014 .

I never used the cloth room until I got Poser Pro 2014. But now I look forward to using it. Fitting Room + Cloth Room = easy dynamic clothing conversion of old conforming clothing.

The thing that I noticed now is that it's faster for me to do things in Poser Pro 2014. I know longer have to use many of the tricks and work arounds that I used in previous versions of Poser.

If I had to recommend a version of Poser then it would be Poser Pro 2014.  There should be some big sales coming up because of the holidays around the corner.  Buying a previous version of Poser for cheap or waiting for a sale will save you money.  The real question is "which  option will save you the most money?"

Poser Pro 2014 has the ability to combine material nodes (so say, bagginsbill could put all the nodes that people shouldn't mess with unless they know what they're doing into a single "master node") which won't work in earlier versions of Poser, but that's it for non backwards compatibility.

One other detail is that Poser 10/Pro 2014 will render faster on a machine than Poser 9/Pro 2012 will, due to enhancements in IDL calculation and other render engine improvements.

Depending on what Poser version you have now, you can upgrade or sidegrade to the PP2014 Game Dev for the same amount as to upgrade or sidegrade to PP2014.

On a side node, PP2014 (and Game Dev) are about 25-35% faster in rendering as previous versions, and I love each and every new tool in both of them.

Compared to PP2012? ?

PP2014 and PP2014 Game Dev are gonna be with us for a while, (as Cooper said in a previous post here) so you probably might expect some more SR's in the future to improve the app and the newer tools even further.

Read all about the new version here:

http://poser.smithmicro.com/gamedev.html

Upgrades and sidegrades from existing versions can be found here:
(Current serial number required)

http://poser.smithmicro.com/upgrade.html

Upgrade from PP2014 to PP2014 Game Dev is 39.99$ (till 08/31/14)

Happy Posering you all.
Best regards,
Tony