See the new thread I started at Poser 5 Lockups and Stability Issues.

No, they couldn't have done that. My old drive was completely fried and inaccessible. From what you said of the CPU makes me think that THAT is what I need to upgrade next. At present I'm running on a 1.8 gig Intel Celeron. And richardson is right, I think. Time for a new thread?

Thanks for the response! I'm using an NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 Pro video card, and the driver is the latest available. I defrag on a weekly basis (or anytime the system hangs up, just in case). Worms I'll have to check for, but I don't think so. I do a search for all *.tmp files on a regular basis and delete them. I have 90% of a 120 Gig HD available at present. The place that installed the new HD+RAM did a thorough cleaning of the inside of my case. Did a completely clean install of Poser+latest service release...twice. I even saw that Poser 5 has a problem with part of the Win XP SR2 that protects against possible virus intrusions, and disabled this for Poser only (and since I uninstalled the Content Room, I don't go online with Poser anyway.) I'm beginning to think Poser 6 is my only hope. Anyone know how much functionality there is with the demo that's posted? Thanks again!

Now I'm to the point where I can't render ANYthing larger than a postage stamp without P5 locking my system. This after a hardware upgrate so that I've now over a gig of RAM, loading Poser afresh and so on. Does the video card have anything to do with rendering, because that's the only thing I haven't done. And I'm already planning on upgrading to P6 after the first of the year. Doesn't look like I have much of a choice anymore!

It's been almost a year since I posted my original request, and I'm still waiting and hoping. But don't hold your breath! ;D

What gets me is that, without making any systems changes--hardware OR software, and actually reducing the number of files I had loaded into P5's Runtime folder--I went from being able to render multiple-figure and props pics to barely able to render anything. Not only that, occasionally when I attempt to load individual characters (based on V3, M3, and David)my computer now locks. I've run a boatload of diagnostics, and everything checks out as working fine, again both hardware and software. Deleting and reloading Poser, thinking maybe it had somehow become corrupted, also did nothing to ease or eliminate the problem. I am SO confused!

Okay, now I'm at a loss. Now I can't render ANYTHING without Poser locking up, not even a single figure against a blank background. I've tried uninstalling and re-installing the program, increased the size of my swap file (just in case), defragging, etc., etc., but nothing worked. Any suggestions? (Other than upgrading to P6 which I don't think my system can handle at present, and I don't have the $$ for hardware upgrades.) The thing is, I've rendered some complex scenes in the past with no problem, and now I can't render ANYthing.

Spire

Heh! I wish I COULD ctrl alt del when Poser freezes on me! My lock-ups are so bad that the reset button is the only option. E-Frontiers does suggest reducing the acceleration settings on a graphics card if you're having lock-ups, and I tried it, but after I did, all the checks, pluses and minuses beneath my libraries disappeared. The only way to restore them was to re-install P5. Grrrrrrr!

I've been holding out on upgrading to P6 for a couple of reasons. First, I'm gonna need a larger hard-drive already since Poser takes up nearly all the space I have now (20 gigs), and second, I've been scanning various forums and such to see if most of the bugs are getting worked out. I also need to drop another strip of RAM in, I think, but I'm wondering if the renders don't use the graphics card instead of RAM. I used to get a "You are almost out of virtual memory" warning early on, but now I don't get that at all. The 'puter just freezes, and I'm hosed. But thanks for the reply anyhow. Spire

I know this thread was started last May, but it seemed the place to ask my question: there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to when P5 is locking on me during renders. A scene with 2 or 3 characters renders just fine, but when I want to do a medium or tight close-up on one of them, the 'puter locks so bad that all I can do is hit the reset button. One at hand is a good example. I have a David figure with the medium res texture from DAZ, Actual Eyes, Digiport's genital figure, a chair and 2 wall props. That's it. This same scene with a V3 character and several additional props rendered just fine with a P4 render, shadows and Production quality @ 1280x992 and 350 dpi, but when I try to zoom in on David, I get lock-ups. I've tried re-building the scene from scratch, reducing the production quality and displacement settings, turning off all shadows and deleting any texture maps for parts of the characterthat didn't show, but still no joy. Can any of you Poser sages give me any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Spire

Thanks for the link, but I'm not sure any of the roll hairs would make it without some serious work. I DID play around with the DAZ Pony Tail, following the link to the thread Carolly posted, and I think that's done the trick, at least for now. I don't quite get it using the settings Anton has there, but playing around with it once I had those loaded has given me something that will work until I come across something better. Thanks again to ALL of you for your quick help and guidance with this. If ever I can return the favor, I'll certainly try! Spire out!

Yeah, I know about piling on different hair props, Emily, and depending on which ones you're using, you can get all kinds of cool results, even in mixing and matching textures. I love your rendering, and hate to show my ignorance, but where do I find Maya's free big curly hair? Looks like something I could use! And thanks!

WOW! Thanks Carolly for the link and thread. I had no idea I could get something like this with the Daz Ponytail. Obviously I haven't played around with it enough. Actually, since I posted last, I managed to come up with something close by combining the ponytail with Traveler's Brad Stylez and got a really nice bee-hive thingie purely by accident. Haven't tried to "powder" it yet, but one of the free Wenke textures for the PT matches the Brad default tex well enough that I should be able to tweek them to get a nice platinum white. I'm gonna have to fiddle some more with this today, I am sure!

Almost from the beginning (last year for me), I've pretty much used Morris's Miss April texture.
http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=25602
However, I do have Mirrin's Valkyri and Dark Omega's Exterminatrix textures which I like for their faces. I've tweeked April a bit over time, in particular by using a bump mat attached to the displacement node, and by doing a few of my own make-ups via PSP5. Also, I have RDNA's shaders so I can alter her skintones when I want a change. The other thing that recommended April to me is that she's hairless, something I prefer. Many other textures out there have a pubic patch of some size. I must say, however, that I have been looking at Gwendolyn's textures and characters with a great deal of interest, and will probably try out one of them in the near future.