Can anyone tell me how I might be able to preview my creation with Iray before actually rendering? I am using Daz Studio 4.9

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here,

The view port window shows a preview of your scene pre-render or alternatively you can open the Aux view port and set to Iray for a real time IPR (Interactive Progressive Rendering) Iray render preview.

Generally the easiest way is to start an Iray render and then you would only need a few iterations rendered before you have a grainy view of your render which would serve as a preview.

I think I have it...I will try this. Thank You

Bit late replying but if you mean 'How do I see an Iray preview in the viewport window', i.e. without starting a render then there is an option for it. Look at the top right corner of the viewport (not the whole screen) and you'll see the grey bar that allows you to select cameras and various other views. Just to the left of this there should be a symbol (probably a circle/sphere) with a small arrow underneath. Click that and a list of options pops up with 'Nvidia Iray' at the bottom. Select that and you are a go. Bear in mind that you will need some kind of light source to see anything and it takes a reasonable beefy machine to keep it on full time. It can get bogged down and appear to be doing nothing sometimes, so use it as you see fit. If you do find it a bit much I recommend what the other poster said about setting up a small aux viewport and setting that to Iray as I described, leaving your main viewport at default or whatever.

TY Iwaves..I believe that was the answer I was looking for..most appreciated. It kind of sucks to render something and have to wait that long just to find out the render comes out black even with lights..

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and yes, it does suck when that happens.

Thankfully they've improved the preview enough now that I can keep it on for posing and lights etc with my GTX 970. I still use Texture Shaded for setting up but then I don't really need an Iray preview at that point. The latest Daz Studio is the best yet for previewing.

My system is Asus sabertooth 990FX, I am running 24 gb ram with an AMD AM3 8320 8 thread processor...my video card is an EVGA Geforce niviaia 1050 ti sc...I found what you sent me to look for...ran it and I love it but unlike the actual render...I could not figure out how to cancel the process once started...

You don't really cancel it, you simply switch to one of the other options in the list. Usually it's the default of Texture Shaded but whichever one suits what you want to do.

Iwaves, ty so much for the heads up..I hope you do not mind me "leaning" on you for information...I am just trying to learn...LOL

No problem, glad to be of help. We were all learning once, including me and I still am learning.

if there isn't a problem with you, Iwaves...I'll shoot you a pm instead of posting here in the forum..thank you again for helping me in this matter..