I asked this in the technical forum as well. Does Poser run any different from AMD than on a Pentium? The reason I ask is because my AMD is stuffing up alot (poser freezes a lot... not the only prob though by FAR) and we think its a hardware fault. The warrenty people have suggested that Poser and some other programs might not be suited to AMD's architecture and I was wondering if there was any truth to that. Thanks!

I'm on an AMD Athlon 700mhz and have no problems at all, well apart from a severe lack of wealth, baldness and a bit of backache that is.....

I'm sure you'll find many many people using Poser successfully on AMD architecture. If you're freezes happen during or just before rendering then it could be a memory problem... possibly caused by the Windows 98 memory leak? And if the warranty people tell you that your software is at fault then maybe they mis-sold you the machine in the first place? Ask for a replacement machine which runs your software. :)

Runs fine on my AMDs. A lot of it has to do with the quality of the motherboard and it's compatability with the RAM on it. I also use two Pentium computers. Bothe My Pentium AMD computers run the same with Poser4. In the past I have had Pentium and AMD combinations that bothe had issues though. It's always been the cheap motherboards like my BCM or my FIC ones that had problems. So far as long as I have stuck with the top RAM and motherboards brands rated at Anandtech.com I've been alright.

AMD processors produce a lot more heat than Pentiums so if you have overclocked your CPU or you don't have proper cooling system you may encounter problems with stability. And Poser uses very much CPU power.

yah we thought it was heating at first, so wee got a good fan and have been keeping tabs on the temperature. its not over heating. i'll write up my specs in a sec

I've mentioned this in numerous posts, including once again just yesterday. Your machine isn't "freezing" because of the processor or the heat or anything hardware related. Just a hunch, but I'll bet your're running Windows 98 or ME. Am I right? I've experienced regular lock-ups during renders on a Intel Pentium 3 1Ghz. I've never locked up a single time on my AMD Athlon XP 1600 running Windows XP. I'm 99.9% certain that your problem is caused by your operating system. The solution is to step forward into the 21st century and upgrade to Windows XP (Windows 2000 will also likely clear up the problem)

ok my comp is amd athalon xp 1.47 ghz, 512 mb ddr ram, leadtek 64 mb geforce 3 grahics card and a segate barracuda mother board

yes i am using ME and its horrible, but I dont want to upgrade to xp just yet. I've heard mixed things about it

The reason we believe it to be a hardware problem is because we get a few blue "fatal error" screens and the computer often restarts in the BIOS setup utility and shows the wrong cpu speed, which points to a hardware problem i think

sith, if the BIOS is showing the wrong cpu speed then it's likely a configuration problem before it's a hardware problem. Did you put the system together yourself? Did you set the CPU speed in the BIOS manually? Does it just keep losing the correct setting and reverting back to some other setting? Give me as much info as you can. It's possible that the battery on the motherboard is failing and it keeps reverting back to the default settings (one of many possibilities) Let me explain the lockups I was having and see if this sounds like your problem. On my P3 running Win98, everything would be kosher until I hit render. The render window would pop up, then sometimes it would just sit there forever, not progressing, not responding. This would happen several times a day. This NEVER happened on my Athlon running XP. Last week I upgraded the P3 from 98 to XP and I haven't locked up a single time in a week. I think it's pretty obvious to see what was causing my problem - Windows 98. Does this sound like the same type of freezes that you're having? You're problem might be something different, but maybe not. Do you have problems with any application other than Poser?

Hey there I have a amd athlon 2000 xp chip and haver no problems cheers dolly

Well, at least upgrade to Windows 2000, then.

I've used AMD chips since the 200MX and have to agree with the above -- the motherboard and RAM will make a difference, but combine cheap ones with Win98 and "pray while you play".

I now have an Asus board with an AMD 1.4 and 512K RAM, NVidia GEForce2 MX/MX4 running Windows 2000 without a problem. In fact, it's the most stable machine I've ever had, AFTER I upgraded from Win98 to Win2K. (although World Builder seems to prefer Win98 over Win2K)

The machine I'm typing on however, (I have two) is the AMD 200 MX with the FIC board and 256K RAM. I've had several video cards in this machine over the years from the cheap to the not so cheap, every OS except XP (now also using Win2K) and I have never found anything to be stable on it. I know it's an outdated CPU but the point is, we bought two identical machines like this several years ago, both for different purposes, and neither one has ever been stable. We tried BIOS settings, different RAM, double checked the voltage settings, jumpers, etc, but no reliability. With Win2K on them now they are less likey to crash or have wacky errors than they did with Win98, though.

I know several people with the same or similar Asus/AMD/NVidia combination that are more than pleased with performance especially under Win2K.

cyber-organic, No I didn't set up the computer, yes the BIOS setting keeps reverting back to the wrong cpu speed even after I've changed it. As for poser freezes, sometimes when rendering the render bar pops up, but there is no progress and i can move the brar around and cancel will nto work. Other times it just locks up. I will think about upgrading to 2k, but I want to be sure that it is a software problem and not hardware before I do that.

I'm using an AMD at work and a Pentium 3 at home. I have more problems with the work computer than I do at home. The work Poser wont let me choose my options when I export something out as an OBJ. I can click on the boxes and nothing happens. I can take the same file open it up at home and not have any of those problems. I'm clueless as to what causes it.

Well, I'm using AMD TB 900 .. and no problem with that except temperature level (up to 60c when running fully the Geforce 3) and of course win98Se so special way to manage memory allocation ...

ROFL...here we go again How I*ve missed that :-P

Ooops, the big deleter has come this way. @sithgoblin : I am not sure if this might help, but you could try a BiosUpdate. That fixed the problems we had with our other computer. I'm using AMD Athl onXP 1600, 512 DDR RAM and Windows XP Prof - works fine.

I have a amd 900 athl on XP Pro...no problems with Processor...Memory I did have a probelem...I was running a gig of memory and the machine was slower than car driving in snow storm. Then I ran Painter from Metacreation and it tells me I am out of memory...So then I installed my free Painter that came with Drawing pad Wacom...It tells me I am out of memory...then I try another graphics program..I am thinking damn...I have a virus that Norton did not catch...so I reformated my hard drive reinstalled everything...3 days later ..(because of Poser) I trying my programs...and no memory...So I tried changing my memory chips around and one did not work...so I pulled it...and everyone of my program came back to life...and ran faster even though I only have now 512 ram. Moral of story...try memory before do anything crazy like I did.

Hi, Well he's right about "Me" (who me? :) At least it completely stuffed my laptop, (took it a while though :) but I was also running with only 128Mb at the time. Now that MS has officially endorsed AMD (they said nice things about Bill in court. Me, a cynic? never... :) I reckon your choice of processor is pretty much accademic. Unless poser5 is tweaked to use the advanced memory pipelining of the new Pentium 4 core then the AMD will be faster for normal work. It's certainly faster at most games and other processor intensive apps, (crunching mp3's, etc.) and other things not specificaly optimised for the Pentium 4, (with the curiuos exception of Quake Arena at 1024 x 768 :) As for XP, as I've said before, from bitter personal experience I can tell you that if you choose to tweak XP, (I'm using XP pro) then the chances are it too may die horribly as did mine. However, if you install it and do nothing to it, (and by that I mean installing other software) it'll work OK. I've got the "MS Press " manual on XP pro and I've been using computers for 20+ years, and even I, (with some MS admin mates) couldn't get it working properly again once it died. We came upon the page, after continually falling back, that said, "if problems persist, consult your system vendor." :( Hovever, even with a highly unstable OS, (I only use if for poser and "the Sims" so I can't be arsed with a re-install) with 512Mb I've never had it lock up on me again. Even when it's sat there and thought about it for 30 mins, prior to rendering and made lots of "bing" noises in the background as it worked. It's always rendered without a hiccup. YMMV later jb

Attached Link: http://www.xpantispy.de

It shouldn't be an AMD related problem. If the BIOS is continually misreporting the Cpu speed, then the odds are it's a BIOS or probably a motherboard problem. DO check the ram first, as someone stated. A bios upgrade should take care of it though... IF the builder who put your computer together actually did a good job and used only new, tested parts. That's not always a given... sometimes people cut corners. Definately go to Win2k, or back to WIn98Se over WinME. I've had freezes in poser on my P3 with large files n Win98 that opened and rendered in Win2k with no problems. [To me, it starts getting to be a large enough pz3 to worry about it at 100mb+] I'm running a dual boot Win2k/Win98Se system.

I have a AMD 1.3 512 megs ram geforce 2 card doesnt freeze but trying to use one file....Dudley Auto 57 Chevy :( will not freeze during new render will outright blue screen me every single time .....It will however render in its own window?? dont know why....I have to export it to bryce to use it ...thats the only problem on the AMD..and it might have nothing to do with AMD..ANd I am using Win98se... seems to work fine except for that though I imagine I will be moving to XP hopefully with no driver issues.

I'm using an AMD 750, and poser gets hosed from time to time, but then again, I can't even delete files without ME getting hosed. I only use windows for Poser and Vue, so It get's restarted almost daily (which MS seems to expect.....to bad wine ain't up to direct-X) I'd say you have a HW problem. I had a network card that caused a Win2K machine (at work) to occassionally reset. Unfortunately, the network card also prevented it from resetting properly, so it just sat in the nether land, neither on, nor off. Replacing the card fixed everything. The 1.47 sounds a little strange to me, are you certain that it isn't "overclocked?" If so (of course this would fall back to the heat issue) it might be part of the problem. eric