Thanks all....for your help. I did try the "Adjust for Best performance" and I increased my Virtual memory from 786MB to 1000MB but that did not change anything. I'll try the defrag next and see what that does. Also My Windows XP Professional installation was a clean install.

A carification..... I can see ALL of the folders as I scroll down the list BUT I just can't open all of them. I wish someone would tell me how to allocate more RAM to Poser. I need to learn this. I should already know how to do it.

At this point I'm finding out the possiblities of my problems are overheating of the cpu....I'm at 149degrees F. and a possible need to re allocate more virtual memory to Poser. It seem that things work fine when I first start up but after things warm up (in about 20 minures) then things start acting up. I need to check placement and proper connecting of my fans in the case tower also.

The Hi-Rez textures are around 2500x2500. I'm starting to think it's a cpu temperature problem along with a memory seeting not being right in the OS. I need to allocate more memory for Poser. After I got off my computer this afternoon (it was on for about 7 straight hours) I rested it for about three hours and then as soon as I turned it on I opened up Poser immediately and tried to open one of those problem files and IT LOADED PROPERLY. About 20 minutes later it started acting up again after I shut poser off and re started it. The files would not load again. So I know nothing is wrong with the files...something is happening after the computer either warms up or something else is happening with system resources or memory. I checked my bio's and the CPU temperature was at 149 degrees. I think this is a bit high, don't you think? Yes the old 233mhz was a Pentium cpu. This new 1400mhz is an Athalon cpu.

Hey Batista.... This is a follow up from another forum on this subject, I might have found the problem... Read on.... Anybody like to comment on this? I know exactly how you feel because I went through this aggravation, for a very long time, until I realized the problem was heat in my machine! and the swap size on my hard drives. If poser is installed on your C drive the same as your OS ( I use XP as well ) you need to allocate a large amount of swap size, My current size on my c drive is 14Gig and sp that windows has enough room to swap and not cause conflicts with other programs. I had tried every thing, I even removed memory out of my machine, leaving in only one chip of 512mb. Still was hanging,and was shutting down on me. I changed my geforce2 to geforce3, still same problem, changed my case to a file server, with 4 fans running in it.. still hang and shut down. Then I went and got a new fan for Athalon, and bingo, my system has not hung or crashed after that. The thing about Athalons is the heat problem, and when doing multiple applications especially 3D it really heats up! I already blew up an Athalon 1.2ghz using poser running on windows 2000. Also disk speed is also very important, if you have a slow hardrive, it can also be a problem, cause he swaps on disks, a bit like Photoshop does, having a big swap file on your c is important to run windows especially XP cause he just eats up the resources. I suggest you try changing you cpu fan to a bigger one, and not buy an orb one, they are the worst ones, I currently have a volcano6 1700 rpm it sounds like I have a plane in my office but, it has not crashed once since I changed it. Also you might consider reinstalling windows, and giving more swap space and increase the size for the C drive. I have one 1gig of ram in my machine, and a geforce3 TI 500 with a 60gig hardrive, and a 1.4ghz Athalon. Time to admit how silly i was once :o) I cleaned my CPU fan then was messing in poser and getting some of the same problems your getting Devon turns...it got worse and worse till the pc was crashing every 5 minutes...turns out i fitted my fan uoside down and the cpu was glowing LOL (still working now though in my sisters pc, good old pentium 300mhz been clocked at 400 since the day they came out ;o).....BUT saying that over on the poser list we are seeing a lot of problem with XP users and also a lot like Ron who have no problems at all, so might be worth looking at the cooling first then maybe the os.....wish i could help more coz i been in a similar problem with NT.... The reason why I agree with &*%^$#@ is because it all fits. YES All the parts of the Computer were new and installed as a MONGREL unit. I was warned and told about the Heating problems with the Athalon CPU and did have extra fans installed. BUT NOT the best ones. My computer is so quite I can't even hear the hard drive working. I have Windows XP professional installed with ALL the latest updates. I even had my computer completely checked over by a certified Microsoft tech who knows a ton about this stuff. This is one area we did NOT check but I did mention to my friend that I thought it was funny that this problem seemed more prevalent in the evenings. That would explain why sometimes the same Poser files would load and other times it wouldn't. I appreciate all your comments though. At least CYBERBABE made sence to me. I hope this is the problem cause I need to fix this now. Thanks DEVON I was just told by my friend that I do indeed have a volcano6 1700 rpm fan on top of my Athalon CPU BUT I have two other cheap fans at the front and back which probably are NOT working as well as they should be for taking air in and out of the tower unit. I also found out that my computers BIO's is set up so that if My CPU goes to a point of being too HOT (FRIED) the system will convert to a 700MHZ cpu speed and slow down to COOL IT OFF. Also having my Tower in an inclosed desk section is not helping it (even if I leave the door open). I went into my Bios to check the temp and It was at 149degrees after running for about 6 hours straight. I don't feel that's overly HOT. What do you think? Like I said before my tech friend set the Bios so if it gets to 165 degrees it will switch the CPU speed to 700MHZ automatically to cool it down. I'm starting the think it might be the swap file/memory and how much is allocated. I still will get the case out of the desk and put in new and more powerful fans. DEVON

Attached Link: http://http://home.cfl.rr.com/greenhornet2002/

I'm glad it helped you taliahad. I'll probably just get windows XP and use that. I don't like experimenting with my system.ini file unles I know exactly what will happen.

In the Statment by scifiguy:Open the system.ini file in the Windows folder (make a backup first!) and find: [386Enh]. In that section, there should be a line that says: ConservativeSwapfileUsage=0. Change it to ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 (or add that line if its not there). I too did Not find any line like the above and I'm also wondering where I'm supposed to put it? Does it matter? At the top , middle, bottom?

Well if you read all of what I said above ....YES..I already know it's a Windows 98 problem. Windows 2000 is the next best thing other than XP BUT XP has much more overall improvements to make it warrented PROVIDING the compatibility issues are resolved. I'll wait for that. I just wish I knew this before getting this new computer and buying all those high rez textures for Michael and Vicky..that don't seem to want to work now along with those hugh scenes I created for my online comic. I think I'll try changing the Max File Cache settings in the system.ini file next.

Actually it's 96MB of RAM windows 98SE will only allow you to use. And I stand by my story becauce I got it from a Microsoft certified engineer who works for a big Computer company. And I'm ONLY talking about Windows 98SE OS. I will however look into the article about the conservative cache feature. Thank you ...that might be my next option. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out.

This is an exceprt from an e-mail from a good friend of mine about his Poser Pro Pack problems: I've had the same problems with Windows ME (and I'm telling you that ME is short for Multiple Errors). It happens to me mostly while I try to multi-task during renders. Since then, I've learned to quit all programs other than Poser and leave the computer alone until it's done rendering. I've run across crashing sometimes with huge renders or more than 5 lights or the Vickie2 HiRes map-- I created a lower Res version that corrects the crashing. I have a 85mb .pz3 on my HD that renders okay but takes a while. I have a 1gig pentium, 512mem, 64mem ATI Radeon. I might be going back to 98SE because I get video/sound crashes and network weirdness in ME. For a while, I used a 98SE/WIN2000 dual boot setup. Poser, Vue and most 3D programs are much more stable in WIN2000. I thought about XP but don't like Microsoft licensing changes for it but there's some compatibility issues with some older programs and hardware.

Windows 98SE will only allow you to use 64MB of RAM...it will also only allow you to run at 800MHZ....no matter what your computer tells you. Windows 98 was made before 1998. Remember back then how fast computers were? Nobody designed Windows 98 to run as fast as computers today because they didn't figure it to be needed for anything faster. By the time computers get caught up to speed they knew they would have a new OS out by them. That what Windows XP is supposed to be for NOW. Problem is will our programs run on it. I'd hate to take the chance but I might have now choice. I just want to figure out why all of a sudden I can't render my Poser figures now with Props or even figures by themselves since adding these upgrade patches. I have been finding out for other fellow Poser members that one of the underlying difficulites is the new Characters Vicky and Michael. Not the characters themselves but the large detailed texture maps that we are all gettting for them. They simply are not always rendering properly. This is where my first hang ups were coming from. DEVON I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it kills me. More patches please

Will Poser ProPack work fine with XP? The reson why i didn't want to install XP was because of compatibility issues with older programs. I even had an instance last night where I was working with a smaller file that I know windows 98 can handle and I just changed the light settings and it hung up again. This all started not from windows 98 but from those dam ungrade patches. Ever since I got Pro Pack I've had troubles.