Thank Uli; I'll give that a try.

I made a little discovery; I opened a scene (very similar to the one above) that has never been able to render before at all in Poser 6 (either with FireFly or the Poser 4 engine) in Poser 4.03. It rendered just fine!!!!

This would lead me to think that either:
A) Poser 6 has a problem with it's rendering engines as the same scene on the same files/content works just fine in Poser 4.03
B) There is something in the runtime folder that is giving Poser 6 a problem, possibly left over from Poser 4.03 (All of my content is in Poser 4's runtime directory - it's what I was using before I got 6).

Yeah, it will still do it after a reboot. I've reduced the sizes of (some) of the textures, but it didn't seem to help much. Like I said, this is an extremely common problem for me. The test scene has some very high res textures (which is what I'm trying to troubleshoot) - not really practical to resample all the textures. It just seems like Poser is running into some sort of resource limitation all the time; not physical memory. I can't help wondering if it isn't something with the videocard (I don't think ATI has the greatest drivers). I'll experiment a little with the software renderer. At this point I'm wondering if I'm not just better off sucking it up and investing in something like Bryce to do the final rendering, and just leaving Poser to do the scene creation.

GAZE UPON THE YE OLDE TIMER POWER RIG MORTALS, AND DISPAIR! Intel 386 SX/16 (REAL MEN DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' MATH COPROCESSORS!) 1 MB Ram (I know, I'm a wild man) 80 MB HDD (Let's you store tens of files) 256K Trident VGA (That's 640 x 480 with ALL 256 colors baby! WOOOO!) Dual floppy drives (that 5 1/4 AND 3 1/2, SUCKA!) 1/2 speed CD-ROM (complete with caddies!) Microsoft Windows 3.0 (the almost functional one) Dr Halo (Photoshop? What's that?) It makes a very nice plant stand or door stop.

I think that's what Intel is working on to address the Pentium 4's power issues... Always liked onion rings better myself...

I was wondering if they screwed up; I downloaded it, then a minute later the link to it was gone. I think I have just been made a Beta Tester...

OHMYGOD...it's here...(tears in eyes).... Now lets see if it works.

Makes me wonder: are CL's "Beta Testers" in the same category as the "girlfriend" that the biggest nerd in high school was seeing in Niagra Falls over the summer, that no one ever saw? Hmmmmm? me... I'm studing to become a PIT FIGHTER! GEEZ! (I really need to turn off the computer and get some sleep now...)

My request for Poser 7? A REFUND!!!!!! Just kidding. How about...oh, I don't know...a program that doesn't crash every other time you try to render something? I mean, who do they think they are, Microsoft?

Most of the time, I get the hangup on the "Loading Textures"; sometimes it will start rendering then just quit if the scene has multiple figures. Turning off bump maps didn't seem to have any effect when rendering with the P4 engine. I always know when it has crashed and not just being slow when the render preview clears everything but the background color, and it won't cancel (then I have to give it the "three finger salute" to kill it). Once in a while, but rare, I will get the actual "out of memory" message. I use the DAZ high res skin textures quite a bit, so I'm sure that isn't helping if they are overwhelming the buffer, but the weird thing is, I never had these kind of problems with the same figure in 4.03 that I get in 6.0 using the P4 engine. I chalked it up to the memory bug in 6, but I don't know if this is the exact cause or not. Possibly very dumb question: How do you turn off bump maps when rendering with FireFly? I use the P4 engine most of the time (I upgraded from P4) so I'm not really familiar with Firefly.

The problem I run into constantly is it hanging up at "Loading Textures" part of the render on both FF and P4 engine (probably 50% of the time, sometimes with just 1 figure!). I'm not sure if this is part of the same memory bug (which displays the "out of memory" message), but I sure hope they address it.

Greetings. Here would be my advice: When looking for your hard drive, pay attention to the connection and the rotational speed. I think the motherboard you selected has a Serial ATA connection (SATA); if at all possible, make sure your main hard drive has this as well (in theory, it is a faster connection to the computer than "regular" ATA). Also, make sure it's at least 7200RPM (10,000RPM = awesome) The only reason that I would use two or more HDD in a system is in a case where the main system drive could be on a high performance disk (like the kind I described above), and then using a larger, but slower "data" drive to store files on. The cost difference between a CD and a DVD burner is now pretty nominal (at least here in the USA, a decent multiformat 16X DVD burner can be found for under $100). DVD is great for backup. Poser can be a space hog with enough content - I have probably a 5+ GB runtime directory at this point. I like Windows XP Pro, and I believe it to be better supported at this point, but fundamentally it is not much different from Win2000. Taking a pass on this would save you some money. For cameras, it sounds like you just need a simple 3 or 4 Megapixel point and shoot model, of which there has to be hundreds. Since you are going to use it for textures, just look for one with a real optical zoom (real cheap ones just have a digital zoom) and a low-noise image processor. I would probably recommend Canon cameras; I have had a couple and of the reviews I've read, they have consistantly done very well. For a printer, it sounds like you don't need anything fancy; most of the lower end inkjet printers from just about anybody would be fine. In fact, you may want to look for a bundle deal with a camera - some stores or manufacturers offer discounts or rebates if you buy a camera with a printer. I've had a printer from pretty much every maker, each has their own pluses and minuses; you might want to check out www.tomshardware.com - this is a European web site and they do have some printer and camera guides aimed at the European market. Hope this helps. I'll only envy you if you get an Athlon 64 FX. ;-)

Poser has know memory bugs that are independent of the OS (and supposed to be patched soon), so I'm not sure if one OS is going to be better for it over the other in this regard. I personally like XP Pro better; Win2K is not nearly as user friendly and is not as well supported by software makers and device makers. Given that MicroShaft has a long history of dropping support for older products, I think you would be better off with XP.

Taliban Lingere anyone?

DAZ has some good ones. http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=651 http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=1329&cat=4 I've got both of these and have been pretty pleased with the results.