I'm getting a new computer and need advice. Ever since installing Vicki, Mike and Stephanie as well as a few new buys and downloads, I've been having problems with Poser. My hard drive came close to filling up and I've only got about 800 megs of space left. Then I started getting the error message of not enough memory but it only happens with a large image with lots of props/characters, etc.

What I have is a pentium 2 that was built by someone else. It's pretty maxed out though. When I tried putting in a larger hard drive (I had a 4 gig) it wouldn't take anything larger than an 8 gig.

I know very little about computer systems but I have installed memory, cdroms and my crw. What I would like to know is what I need to run Poser, bryce, PS, and other 3d/paint programs simultaneously without it freezing up on me.

Right now, poser is so slow it takes forever to do a simple image. With two kids, two buisnesses and a husband I really need something faster because I feel I'm wasting my very limited time. ;-)

Any suggestions on what to get? (just don't suggest a Mac) :-)

Your RAM memory is the crucial factor. RAM matters far more than raw CPU speed or monstrous hard-disk space, because a computer really does much more "organizing" than "figuring". It needs to have a place to put things temporarily while organizing, and if it doesn't have enough (fast) RAM to store things, it will use the (slow) disk instead. You should be able to get by with an 8GB disk, with good housekeeping. (Back up anything that hasn't been used in a while and clear it off the hard disk.) Pack that computer with as much RAM as it will stand; be sure all the little cards are identical in terms of timing and so on.

RAM is important, especially working with 3D apps; even more so if you want to have more than 1 open at a time. I have 512 MB RAM, and I find that it is only OK for what I do. Other things to watch for is video card memory. That can have a big impact in the speed arena. If you are getting a new PC, most likely it will have a good sized HD already, on the order of 20 GB or bigger.

You want to get to a Pentium 3 or Athlon at the very least to really enjoy some of those apps. Athlons are particularly good with multimedia and such. Take a look at www.tigerdirect.com You can probably get some pre-built systems (comparable or better than what you would get at Dell, Gateway, etc) at a decent price. Get atleast a 1 GHz processor for any system that you decide on. There's no reason not to, since they are relatively inexpensive. Also, it sounds like your current motherboard/BIOS is too old to recognize drives over 8 gigs. A newer system wouldn't have that limitation. While I do agree that RAM is very important, and damn cheap anyway, you can probably roll with a stick of 256MB and be ok. It wouldn't hurt to have more though. My 2 cents

They are right, ram is the issue for what we do,and any new system will have a good sized HD at our shop we use 60 GB as our basic drive size. It is a shame when you were running out of HD space on your old system, there are hard drive drive overlays that allow you to install larger HD on older Motherboards systems. so you could have gone past the 8 gb limit you were hitting.

The reason you can't use a hard drive bigger than 8 Gb's is your motherboard bios. Go to the motherboard's manufacturers website and get the bios flash and update it, and you will then be able to detect the larger drive sizes. Adding more ram will likely fix your "out of memory" error. What is most likely happening is you don't have enough ram to hold all the textures and the like in the virtual memory so poser has to write to a swap file on the hard drive. 800 MB's may seem like a lot and for most things it is, but if you get a complicated scene going with a few vicki's and mike's, props, enviornments and hi rez textures you can actually hit a wall and run out of room. A new video card with more onboard memory will speed up access time in the working windows but won't help with your render times, that requires a faster processor. If you want to get a new system look into an AMD Athlon set up with about 1.5 GB of ddr ram, on a quality motherboard like a Soyo or an Abit, a new hard drive running on at least ATA 100, with a nice big tower with at least a 300 watt power supply and every extra fan you can stuff in it and all will work out very well for you.

sheesh, there was only one answer to this when i started typing the above response, you guys are fast typists :}

Yep, RAM rules. www.aaronix.com has a 733mhz w/128MB RAM, 20GB Hard drive, modem, ethernet, sound card, speakers, kybd/ms for $289. Only thing is it doesn't have a monitor, but you can use your old one. These are decent systems for doing Poser and Bryce work, and great if you're on a budget. You can double the ram to 256MB for a VERY small cost. Shipping cost me about $40. I did have to install Windows myself though, so keep this in mind if you go with this system. I've had no problems whatsoever with it, and it does everything I need to do and more. Good luck!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12377

I knew this was the right place to ask. :-) I'll check out the other forum (thanks for pointing it out) and read what's being asked there.
You've given me a lot to think about. What I'm planning to do is ask a friend of my husband, who builds them, to put together something. Now I know more of what to ask him for.

Thanks much. :-)

Kendra