Hey people, me again. So ok, no need to ask you guys and where i can find stuff this time. I actually managed to find everything i needed for now. But i do have a couple problems, i was wondering if anyone had a fix for. 1) When rendering... in new window or not... and at any size... The black bar never moves. So it never seems to start, and then i cant click anywhere inside of poser. If i minimise Poser, i cant restore is back onto the desktop either. however doing a ctrl+alt+delete does not show Poser as "not responding" the program will basically stay like that forever (left it for 14 hours yesterday) Any ideas what the problem is, and how to solve??? Specs for the system are a P3 850, 256mb RAM, with 16 gig available on the drive that poser and its files are on. Swap file is set to min 512 max 1024... and i'm in true color (wondering if going back to 16 bit may help?) 32 meg ATI graphics card as well btw. 2) asked this before... but it was hidden in another topic, so i'll ask again. does anyone know what the REAL limit is on amount of characters in a single render? do props and backgrounds add to this count? and do clothes affect it too? I was told the limit for characters is 5, but i did a render with 7 people and a huge background model. plus 2 props. So either i was lucky... or misinformed. So any facts on the limits would be much appreciated. 3) Posers started to load very slow now too. I used to click the poser icon and it would wizz into action... 15 secs time usually. Now it can take upto 5 minutes, and occasionally just white out on me for all that time. causing it to look like its crashed. sometimes it whites out and DOES crash.. and i cant tell (again, no "not responding" message) Um, just wondering... any idea if a disk-defrag would help this issue? See, disk defrags take a long time on my computer... as they do on most... and since my computer is always doing something (i work on it during the day for work.. i do hobbies and games at night... and when i sleep, i usually start a render going... 2 different download programs run when i dont use the machine... plus i have mIRC open with an alert, in case one of my friends currently in America needs me urgently and cant phone... plus i have Seti@home running when i sleep too) anyways, yeah... it has little time of peace. Due to this, i dont like having a defrag run for 4-8 hours... but if its needed, of course i'll do it. Um, ok thats it i guess. I should be working now anyway :/ sorry if this made no sense, not feeling too good at the moment, but thanks for any help you can offer people. Take care, Duckie

1 & 3: I have no idea what causes this, but it does sound like a new installation might be the only option... I'm not a software or PC engineer, so maybe someone else can shed a light on this! 2: The limit is entirely in your system, CPU speed and RAM is what counts. I have about the same PC spec as you, and I run into problems if I use more than three characters (Mike and/or Vicky with hi rez textures). Everything in the scene counts, if you have a background wall with a hi rez texture and a huge bump map, it will affect your rendering speed. Same with clothes, which are basicly the same as characters: a mesh with textures. The rendering engine will not notice the difference.

1 I assume we are talking 512Megs to 1.025 gb ?? Why not just set them both to 512 megs Then if you use Nortons Speed disk it will set aside an area for your disk for the SwapFile(Virtual Memory ) There seems to be 2 types of crashes The smear crash and the lockup crash exactly as you have described. After one of these crashes always restart your machine You have some major disaster if it never gets going?? 2 There is no limit as such. But you have managed to render at some stage ??? 3 Quite honestly I think you need to reload Poser4 Also when runing Poser shut everything else down would be my advice

Sounds like your machine is badly choked. Take a break for the night... delete loads of crap and defrag. In fact, if I was you, I'd totally Fdisk and reinstall everything. Bah! Howard:)

thanks you two. I think i'll try a fresh install tonight or tomorrow. BTW, my virtual memory is set as it is, cause i was told to do it... Poser never rendered anything in 1600x1600 for me until i had it that way. It did use to be 512 min and max. As thats what is supposedly best for gaming if you have 256meg ram. Also, i do always restart my machine after the render crash.. if Poser crashes on start up, i just close it down and restart it. normally works fine second time. Until i get to rendering. Also, sometimes yes, it will render... for example while working today, after waiting 45 minutes, i had it render me a picture, with 4 people in it. all high quality textures. Background and props. Used to be able to get it to do that in about 4 minutes. Oh well, anyway, yeah.. i'll try a fresh install... of the whole thing (poser, pro pack and service pack 3) hopefully that'll sort it out. Thanks again, duckie

Yes, if you run too many things at once, you'll have problems. Poser demands a lot of resources. You need to take the time to defrag or speed disk your hard drive. Do that when nothing else is running. I do speed disk when I go to bed, or leave for work sometimes. I left my computer on all the time for awhile, then decided it just doesn't make sense. Now I mostly turn off my computer and my wife's when I'm gone. I need her computer on when I use Poser because Poser is just plain weird. Poser insists on looking at our network to see if my wife is running another copy of Poser. Heck, my wife doesn't use half the software I use!

Attached Link: http://www.crucial.com

Agree with hogwarden on the defrag, and (from personal experience) adding more RAM will make a world of difference. I'm also running a P3 850, and going from 256M of RAM to 512M was a night and day improvement. (can also suggest crucial.com (link) for great prices and service)

1). I have the same problem intermitantly, on Athlon T-Bird 800MHz, 128MB RAM (512 virtual), 20GB HDD. 3). Sounds like you need a defrag to me, lou will have to do it sooner or later,get the pain over with now.

defrag yes. if you're still having problems: 1) on some systems going back to 16 bit might help. reduce the minimum virtual memory to 32M(if min is set too high it can lock you up.) Do a google for memory managers. You might find one that works for you. (I used to use one called Ramgate from IMSI - It won't work for XP but it did wonders for W95.) 2) I dunno, depends. 3) seems to me that 3 is related to 1.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=10139&Form.ShowMessage=715430

regarding memory managers: check out the link.

There's precious little substance in that thread. I learned a decade ago that Windows manages memory best on its own. Last I heard, this memory management software doesn't do any good and could actually cause problems. I somehow doubt they made a better version of this software. If you need more memory, buy more memory. If your operating system doesn't handle your memory properly, then upgrade to a newer version of Windows. Save your energy and money and do what works.

Not everyone has that much money to spend, Ron. admitedly a memory manager is not the ideal solution - rather a crutch, that might concievably get one by until they can afford the upgrades. this one asks for a 10.00 donation if it doesn't work - don't donate. simple. BTW the post to look at in the thread is by RaVan. The rest may well be meaningless. 1300 new computer 1500 year new software 20000 new motorcycle 30000+ new car 250000+ new house and the list goes on oh well, maybe I'll get a job on "friends" or win the lottery. sorry, don't mean to be negative who invented this MONEY stuff anyway. Whoever it was I'd like to sick David Letteerman on him.

The last time I bought 256MB of SDRAM from www.crucial.com, I got it for about $19. That included FREE next day shipping. I see the price now is apparently around $50. That is still cheap compared to the potential of wasting time, energy and money on software "memory managers" that may cause more problems than they cure.

touche . . . but we have yet to determine if psychoduck's problem is a memory problem or something else. Also we do not know(or at least I do not know) if psychoduck's machine is capable of being upgraded memorywise. at this point I sugguest we wait for his input unless someone has another idea that can help psychoduck. we can always argue the advantages of memory upgrade verses memory manager at a later time.

well i can buy 256 memory for 10 through work, however, my memory slots are full. And to my knowledge, it only seems to be able to accept the memory in 128s (the two making 256, of course) I may be wrong, but i tried a 256 in it before and it never recognised it. However, i'm against memory managers, a i've used them before on a different computer and it fixed somethings, and ruined a lot of others.

Be sure you're not running a virus checker in the background. That messes things up bigtime. It gets very suspicious when a program starts grabbing memory. As for memory managers all some of them do is mess with Windows own vcache settings. You can lower your vcache a bit yourself if you wish...that way windows won't hog all the memory for stuff you've closed but it thinks you might use later. I used one for a while and discovered I had more memory free without it. I don't remember where the vcache setting is, though, since I moved to XP a few months ago. Memory managers are for win9x only though. XP, NT, Win2K handle memory differently and don't need them. If you have a decent harddrive, defragging is IMHO a waste of time. Things are smooth for a day or two then it's back to business as usual. An occasional scandisk, however, is a good idea. Oh, another thing. Next time you reboot go into Safe mode. don't DO anything there, just boot into it. When everything settles down restart windows normally. This will clear up a lot of problems...rebuild the driver database and stuff like that. Windows thinks you've gone to Safe mode because you can't start windows, so it does everything in it's power to fix what it thinks might be wrong. It's actually a cure for a lot of ills. I had a very stable Win98 system on an old PII450 but I went into Safe mode about once a month whether I needed to or not. I don't know if that did it, but I rarely had problems with Poser or anything else. HTH Sylvia

Psychoduck: Did you try backing off the minimum virtual memory ? From what you described that is more than likely part of your problem.

You really must defrag your hard drive on a regular basis. When you use your hard drive a lot, the information on the drive becomes fragmented, or scattered. That means your computer needs to hunt all over the drive for the pieces of information. That translates to performance problems. Defragmentation isn't a "forever fix." If you use your computer more, you continue to fragment the information, so yes, you need to defrag some more! ***** You want to have your virus checker running in the background all the time. You need to be looking for viruses. My computer automatically checks for email every few hours... Norton Antivirus has caught and killed a few viruses that way. ***** Concerning the memory: we only know what we're told. If someone doesn't give all the facts up front, then they're liable to get some recommendations that aren't appropriate to that particular situation. We have two choices: 1.) Refuse to make any suggestions till we have more information. 2.) Give what is usually good advice and see if it applies. I chose #1 this time. I stand by that choice. Now that we have some more info, all I can do is ask for more. *** Psychoduck: you should be able to find out definitely how much memory your computer can handle. Look for the motherboard or computer manual, or visit the web site of the company that made the motherboard or computer. In some cases, you need to look "at the big picture." My computer has 2 slots for SDRAM. The total capacity for memory is 512MB. At the time I got it, 512MB of RAM was outrageously expensive. I filled up the memory slots with what I could afford. Then it was time to upgrade the memory. I took out my motherboard manual, and did some calculations. I removed a 64MB SDRAM, and gave it to my wife. That doubled her memory, and I got a 256MB SDRAM. Then I bought another 256MB, and removed the other 64MB. You might end up "retiring" some memory to make room for more memory. Or if you have another computer, you might be able to reuse the old memory that way. Ron

I disagree, Ron, and I've been around the block too. You do NOT want to have your virus checker running in the background all the time! You can still have it run live for checking your email. These are separate options with Norton and with most decent ones. Virus checkers are notorious for causing system problems and slowdowns when constantly running in memory. Scan your system regularly for viruses, however. Defragging is a waste of time, especially for newer harddrives. Once a month is certainly sufficient. The only way a defragger can keep your harddrive running absolutely smoothly is to run it every day and that is just silly. Harddrives are meant to hunt all over your harddrive...that's what they do. Defragging can probably tire them much more than that. Do, however, run scandisk frequently. Using a memory manager was useless to me on Win98 because I could handle it better myself with the vcache setting, but they've been helpful to others. BTW I ran Poser 4 under Win98 on an old PII450 with 256 megs of ram until just 4 months ago and had no problems. I rarely defragged, probably twice in 3 years, never ran my virus checker live in the background, went into Safe mode once a month, didn't use a memory manager, and let windows manage the swap file. I must have been doing something right. Sylvia

Sylvia: Is there a scandisk on XP? That used to be my favorite thing to do on the computer next to defrag. around the block. Yeah, I remember watching Eisenhower Get off a plane, Live on TV. and listening to Mystery Theatre on the radio. first run Superman with George Reeves and the TV version of Amos and Andy.(too bad A&A was considered insensitive - like "the three stooges" weren't?) - "Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men? The shadow knows!" bikermouse wanders off completely losing focus on the topic at hand wondering if he really did see a large female carnavore wearing L.D.'s coonskin cap in an unusual place -or whether it was his imagination?. and if it was not his imagination will Vicky get the coonskin cap back? Will TRex survive Vickie's attempt to win back the coonskin cap? Will Psychoduck's computer survive the attempt to revitalize it? stay tuned. we'll be right back after these messages.  - another mousetrap ? who's leaving all these durn things around?

LOL! And Howdy Doody! Can't forget Howdy Doody and George Gobel Sheesh...feels like a different century, doesn't it? Yep, scandisk on XP too. Right click your partition/harddrive from My Computer. Select Properties, then the Tools tab. It's called 'error checking' now. Sylvia

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=741822

case you were wondering what the thing with vickie and cc cap was. Spit:  thanks

LOL! Yes, I was wondering Thanks for clearing that up. Sylvia

Spit, unfortunately, you're the only (or one of the very few) tech(s) I've encountered who has stated that defrag is so bad for the hard drives. When you consider that I've worked with a few hundred techs, and talked to them extensively, that is rather interesting. I was going to do a screenshot to show how to access Scandisk in Windows XP. I've seen it before. But for some reason, Windows XP seems to deny its existance. I can't find it in the Help files, or menus. The only time I recall actually seeing scandisk is if the computer shut down abnormally. Then, upon bootup, scandisk runs. **** Again, I disagree about the perils of running an Antivirus program in the background. I've been doing this ever since I had a PC (12 years), and never experienced any of the problems you warn about. *** I never go into Safe Mode on purpose. My computer has done this maybe 3 times in 4+ years, by itself. I've rarely encountered any problem that would cause it, if I have, I've fixed the problem. I've never read any advice anywhere, in any magazine or newsgroup that recommends booting into Safe Mode periodically just to keep your computer running more smoothly, whatever. **** I've been doing everything "my way," and the way that's been recommended by all the techs and experts whose opinions I respect. My computers have worked just fine. So I must be doing something right.

Whatever At least I found Scandisk in XP. Sylvia

Sylvia: I found what I think may be it, but the format option is greyed out. Perhaps this is one option I should file under for reference only. ... When I got my first computer(13 years ago,) I tweeked the dials to no end. I used memmanagers with positive results. In the past, when I tried to set the virt mem too high I got exactly the results P.D. got. As P.D. seems unwilling to reduce the virtual memory settings, won't use a memory manager can't get more memory into his system, can't or won't run one of the NT systems or buy a new computer, there really isn't anything I can sugguest to help him. - "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

ok, guys... girls... none gender life forms. I seem to of solved my problems. I did a scan disk, in thorough mode. Solved a couple of problems that way. My disk sped up anyway, poser was still annoying. I ran Norton Disk Doctor, which is basically the same as scan disk, right? oh well, that found 1 more error and fixed it for me. Then i ran Speed Disk. and voila... all seems fine now. yay! So thanks for everyones help, its really greatly appreciated. Hopefully sometime i can produce something in poser thats worth showing you : we'll see i guess. Take care all, and thanks again. Duckie.

Good! Now we can all go home, have a cup of coffee, look longingly at signifigent others, get 13 hours of sleep and wonder if cc cap and lores vicky will get back together. or spend the next six months wondering when t'pol and john archer ... ah nevermind. glad its good again - adue.

Spit, I find your response most amusing. Here is a screenshot of the search for Scandisk, in Windows Help. If scandisk can't be found, it's Window's fault!

Scandisk is not here either.