Thanks for all the replies!!

I managed to scrounge around the basement and put together a decent, fully running XP system today. I think this removes some possible issues. Of course I cannot find that memory patch, so that may be the next hurdle! :)

/ljj

I contacted e-on about this, since I have been on the fence about moving from my ancient Vue 5 Infinite to Vue 11 Studio or Complete.

The offer is NOT being made to customers of Infinite or previous non-"artist" versions, presumablty Esprit, etc...

Not sure if this makes much sense....

• ljj 

Thanks much everyone... I should not be so harsh on P5 - I gave up on it early on and have concentrated on PP - but it is time to move on!

Hey thanks for the comments and additional ideas! A followup... I ran into the problem again - after deleting the temp files (which cleared things up), and then defragging the POSER disk (it is installed on it's own 120 GB disk). So I then tried the "CLEAR SWAPFILE" idea (setting it to a low number, rebooting, setting it high and then rebooting). And the problem initally was still there - and then went away. Very frustrating. I would pay $$$ for a solid P4 and PP. Of course the other problem is the way the UI just dies from time to time - for example when you are in RENDER/MATERIALS and click something too many times and there are suddenly 2-3 file menus open, etc.... Anyway, the frustration is worth it, IMHO. Lou

Believe me, I don't touch what isn't broken!!! When I first ran into the problem, I assumed it was the infamous pagefile size problem, so I increased it to the maximum 4095. I suspect something else was/is going on though... BTW, my tech experience in computers in limited to VMS (!) and over in that world - page files and swap files are totally separate animals. I am assuming that in windows people are using the two interchangably and referring to the pagefile - which can be set under "my computer" properties... Thanks again, Lou

Peter, thanks! I deinstalled ProPack last night and reinstalled just P4 (I also run P5 but on another machine). Brought it up - installed on a different disk, with about 114 GB of free space and SAME THING - default dork is there, joints illuminate when the mouse goes over them, but no shaded characters and renders hang. So I went and REDUCED the size of the paging file - and it started working (set to 10 min 100 max - I had previously had it set to 4095 max). I am almost 100% sure I had installed all the updates before - but I am sure you are right - this is related to virtual memory in some way, so I will do it all again. Thanks again! Lou

Thanks for the tips.... Some more details of the problem: - system has three drive: 30GB, 120GB and 120GB. So system disk has about 22 GB free. - problem occurs after clean boot without loading any files - ie. the default dork comes up - is there - but is not visible. Rendering just dork hangs poser....