I just got a new PC and it came with XP. :( {I'm still getting patches to get all my hardware to work}. When I installed Poser a window came up saying something about XP & Poser using the same file (memory) and Poser would run slower. that sort defeated the whole purpose of the new sysrem. It also said something about "putting the (memory)? on a different drive" I'm a little confused. Can anybody help clear things up? Confused & Unhappy. Phily

What you are refering to is the swap file or paging file as it is known in NT based systems. I am running XP and will give you a quick run down on how to change it. NOTE: This assumes you have two drives or one drive with multiple partitions. 1. Right click on my computer and choose the properties option. 2. Click on the Advanced Tab and under the performance field click the settings button. 3. This should open up a window with two tabs, once again select he advanced tab. 4. The bottom field should be labeled Virtual Memory, click on the button in that field to change the settings. 5. The standard setting for a paging file is 1.5 x the amount of RAM in your system. Now for things like poser or other graphic intensive programs it pays to set it higher, but still keep it within a normal range. 6. If you installed Poser on your C: drive then set the paging file to be on one of your other drives or partitions. Click on the drive letter you wish to put the paging file on then set the limits of it in the boxes below. The reason for this is that if you have two seperate drives, the second drive is usually unused for the most part since it is primarily storage. You can set the paging file to any number you want so long as it is less than your free drive space but somewhere between 500 -1500 megs should be plenty. I personally have mine set at 1250 but that is just my own system. For the most part you wont notice much difference in the way it performs (or at least I have not in testing the paging file being on either drive). So if you only have one drive or partition dont worry about it.

Hi Buffer VIRTIAL MEMORY-If the STANDARD is 1.5x, What's the NORMAL range I should set it?, I'm a little new at this TWO SEPERATE DRIVES-I don't have two drives, and my drive is not partitioned. I have a gig of ram on my computer and about a 100 gigs open on my hard drive. Is there any other option besides Two drives or partioning?, the less complicated method the better.

Hi Buffer My System The OS is XP, 2GHZ, 1Gig of ram, 100Gig Hard Drive, DVD burner, CD-RW burner, Zip, plus some misc. I don't know if this info helps. Thanks again Phily

This is all quite interesting. I installed Windows XP on my homebuilt computer. I never had any such messages at all. This statement may have something to do with your problems: " just got a new PC and it came with XP. :( {I'm still getting patches to get all my hardware to work}." Obviously if things aren't working right for any reason, other things likely won't work right either. I'd be curious to know if you have one of those "proprietory computers," that has a restore or recovery CD rather than a Windows XP CD, etc. If your computer is "proprietory," you might not be able to easily partition that hard drive. You have a huge hard drive, and you could easily accommodate for any special needs by dividing it in half. But if you have a restore or recovery cd, it becomes rather tricky. If you ever had any problems with the computer, the computer manufacturer would recommend running restore or recovery which puts everything back to the way you got it on the first day. Ron

Hi Romknights The patches for the hardware are drivers for XP, drivers needed an update to XP's registery system. No bugs involved, just XP's new recognition system. Everything seem to be functioning ok. Yes I have a restore, recovery disk. I tried running poser and at this point, it doesn't seem slower.

I installed a number of programs on my computer, and Poser is the only one to give that message.

Should I increase the Virtial memory even if I don't make a new swap file?, and what should I increase it to?

Fellas......I have WinXP Pro on a Dell machine which came with one 40GB drive. I repartitioned it with Partition Magic and it works fine. I then repartitioned another Dell I had and reloaded the operating system from the Dell Recovery disk. It loaded fine into the partition of my choice and did not remove any other existing partitions. In fact, it appears that it loaded a generic non-Dell version of WinXP, so no proprietary stuff was present (not even the Dell wallpaper). Try Partition Magic 7.0.1. It worked fine for me although there are a few glitches with it......you really want to partition your drive, otherwise you'll be waiting for days while you defrag your giant hard drive......... Krel

I don't know about XP specifically, even though I use it, but with all other OS's from Microshaft, the optimal swap file size is twice your amount of RAM plus 12. An example, if you have 512K RAM, your swap file should be 1036K. The reason for this is that the OS will never use anything more than that, and it is the OS that controls the swap file. This is from Microsoft's engineers and programmers off the record. On the record, they say use the setting that allows the OS to manage it. (They don't). Virtual memory and swap file are the same thing. The only real reason to set it to a fixed amount is to prevent fragmentation, thereby slowing the computer down a little. If you want to tweak the OS to the utmost ultimate speed in regards to virtual memory, then you would place the swap file in it's own dedicated partition as the first partition on the fastest hard drive you have.

Heya :) This message is usually just a performance note... you're performance with the amount of memory you have will be fine because the odds are Poser won't be swapping anyway :) BTW - putting your swap on another partition won't really help... what the message is trying to say is you should use another spindle (drive) so that it can run the virtual memory system WHILE accessing program files. I wouldn;t sweat this much. On the other hand I always repartition... I keep my C: set up so I can wipe it and reload without having to worry about user data. I also move my "My Documents" settings to my second partition :)

HI Soulhuntre Sounds good, no partion, do you think I should increase the Virtual memory (just in case), if so to what?.

I'm gonna jump in for help-- I'm probably gonna have to use a laptop for Poser [leg and back problems are limiting my desptop time] The one I'm looking at is 1.6GMhw, 512Mb memory and 40G hard drive. I really hesitate in partitioning that 40 G, do you think I can get out of it? I'll be running PhotoShop, PSP7, Painter Classic and a hideously bloated Poser 4-- it's almost at 9G right now. New laptop, it'll be XP. Emily

Have you even tried running the XP program compatibilty in the accessories folder under All Programs? The way I get it, it looks at the program, decides if it runs best on win95,98,XP...whatever....and windows XP converts to running like that version when it runs that program. I lotta people don't know that it exists.

Well, I >WOULD< partition it, but you don't have to if you don't want - I feel it a bit risky, but thats me :) I usually set my VM about twice my physical memory on a normal machine.

I ran the XP compatibility changer and it said I could reset the compatibility by returning to the wizard. However XP is not a choice. How do I get it back to XP. BTW...I am having issues with Poser being unable to see any of its geometries after reinstall on my XP system. I've downloaded all the patchs but nothing seems to help....Any ideas??? Thanks Sealynx

Right-click on Poser.exe, select Properties, select the compatibility tab (you've presumably done this already) and then just uncheck the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" checkbox. Are the Geometires in the [Poser directory]RuntimeGeometries folder (and sub folders thereof)? Did you reinstall to a different directory from the first time - it's remotely possible that Poser is reading the old path from somewhere.

Thanks for the return to XP advice. I'll do that when I get home. My hard drive was reformated on the system in question and I installed Poser, so it was more of a new install than a reinstall. I did add in the old Runtime folder which was stored on an external drive. I even tried reloading a file fresh from the net....It still can't find it. I also noticed that Poser installs a back up in the Metacreations folder while the Poser program resides in Curious Labs. Why does it do that?? Thanks for any help S

I have only the one folder, from a Curious Labs Poser 4.03 CD, are you sure the duplicate folder is from Poser and not your copied Runtime? Anyway, Poser 4 is extremely dumb - the Runtime folder must be in the folder with Poser4.exe, and the Geometries folder must be in the Runtime folder, and the object files must be in the right folders within that. Have you tried using Poser's File>Import>Wavefront OBJ to bring in one of your object files, just to make sure they aren't corrupt?

Thanks I have even tried to import new files right off the net into Poser and hand place them in their folders. I've been installing stuff in Poser for years so I am pretty good with it. I can import obj's so combined with the fresh off the net stuff I know they aren't corrupted. Its a weird problem and an irritating one since normally Poser's biggest problem is reposting an error message no matter how many times you turn it off when it can't find something. If it can't find the geometries you often have to bomb out through the task manager and restart. Big fun! Sigh. S

All I can suggest is, if you have the disc space, put copies of the Runtime in both the Curious Labs and Metacreations folders and see if that works.