Jim, I run Poser5 on a IBM T41 laptop at those times when my PC is otherwised engaged (Kids killing stuff etc). Off the top of my head the spec is a P4Mobile with 512mb Memory and 32mb shared video memory using ATI Mobility (7500 I think) chipset. I have to say the Poser is only marginally useable especially when I have multiple figures. I've yet to try Poser6 but hopefully the OpenGL support should speed things up a bit, as Cinema4d runs ok. My main issues with using a laptop for 3D work as the limited screen resolution (1024x768 normally) and having to use a touchpad or trackpoint rather than a mouse when I'm working with the laptop on my lap rather than at a desk. Shared memory indicated that the video chipset (GPU) will use some of the system memory, ie you have 512mb of physical memory installed, and you allocate 32mb of memory to the GPU (Some laptops allow you to specify the amount in the BIOS) you will then have 480mb availiable for Windows. Dedicated memory is memory that is seperate from the system memory and is useally fixed by the laptop manufacturer, but does tend to be faster than using shared memory. Is there a reason why you want to use a laptop rather than a desktop? $1300 would buy a decent spec desktop PC (Probably better than an equivelent laptop, but I'm in the UK and don't know how US prices compare).

IMHO a lot of blame can be laid at the door of CL. It would have made sense from a file-mangement point of view to have all the files for a particular figure/prop etc inside of one folder not scattered around the directory structure.

With the advent of P2P software like Kazzaa, Overnet and Bittorrent it is increadibly easy for someone to get hold of the software, Part of my day job is to look after a 15Tb storage system for a large multi-national. I spent most of the xmas break removing nearly 1Tb of "Warez" - mostly films and the latest games etc - and P2P software as well as adding yet more rules to our firewalls to stop the P2P access. I'm sure that most of you are aware that when you purchase software such as Poser, you are not buying the software but a license to use the software. In real terms you own the media and a right to install and run the software but you have no rights to the software itself, and most of theses licenses are non-transferable. Case in point, I purchased a couple of PCs and a stack of CDs at a company liquidation a few weeks ago, some of the CDs contained installs for V3 and her clothes etc. After posting here and reading the EULA I found that technically I was not able to use her without purchasing her from Daz (Which I did). But what if I had purchased a copy of say HalfLife2 from a store and had then lost my license key. I now own a license to use the software but cannot install it, in the real world all i would probably have to do is contact the puplisher, provide proof of purchase and ask for a replacement key, but how many people just jump onto Overnet and search up "Halflife2 cd-key". They own the licence and original CD-key but have resorted to taking anothers because it was far quicker than emailing the publishers and waiting a few days for a reply. Whilst typing this I've just done an filedonkey search for Daz3d - it returned just over 1000 results. Thats 1000 seperate pieces of Daz software that within a couple of hours I could start downloading straight to my PC, no credit card required. I guess what I'm trying to say is that its like giving someone the keys to a bank vault and asking them not to take any money while you are out. Most of out copyright laws were written to cover printed and other "physical" media, they are wowfully out of date for the digital age.

Thanks Anxcon, I'll try changing the stretch and resolution settings when I get in tonight (don't you hate it when work gets in the way of posing?), I've got a feeling part of my problem was that I started the cloth too close to the outstretched hand, so I'll try lifting it a little too. My idea was to create two cloths, one as a wall template set at zero,the other being the dynamic cloth, Once I got a good drape I was going to delete the extra figures and export the wall and draped cloth together to keep the orginal sizing.

With a bit more deformation that would look just like a waterbed mattress

I'm glad to see I'm not alone my addictions lol. As for the 3am sessions....Hmmm been there, still doing it, still OD'ing on coffee the next day.

Nickedshield, I know about XP being able to open zips, but WinRAR will let you open multiple zips after a shift or control-click rather than double clicking each one individually. My biggest complaint with file handling is that the runtime gets so messy so quickly, and then it becomes a nightmare to find anything. Everyone seems to now use ! or !!!!!! etc at the start of the folder names and Poser seems to treat upper and lower case'd folder names in a different order (AB...XYZ follwed by ab...xyz). And the fact that textures, geometries etc are spread over multiple folders and locations makes tidying up another nightmare. If only MS supported proper symlinks.....

I agree with Kavaman, At the moment, my scenes consist of other peoples models, other peoples props, other peoples clothes and other peoples poses. All I'm doing it putting them together. I would feel very uncomfortable taking credit for anything other than putting the pieces together and hopefully making it look nice. When I was younger my main hobby was landscape photography, I'd trundle off up the motorways to some hill or lake or whatever and snap off a couple of rolls of film, then spend the next day in the dark room processing them. Most of the time the prints were no more than average and were consigned to the rubbish bin, but every now and then I'd get one that would make me go "Wow", I felt the same way about those prints as I do about my renders, If I took enough photos, I would eventually have one that looked good. I'm not of course trying to disparage any of the increadibly talented arists on here, the whole 3d thing for me is a hobby, and I'm smart enough to know where my limits are.

As a newbie, I'm comming to dislike the runtime folder and the install click-click madness. I have found however that both winRAR and WinAce are better tools for unizipping that Winzip as you can just open the .zip file and drag'n'drop the (usual) included runtime straight into your ..poser directory. It took me about 2-3 hours to go from a clean install to having around a CD's worth of free-stuff installed and working ok. IMHO however what's really needed however is someone with a bit of visual basic or scripting skill to come up with a Poser packaging util that can read the zip and put the right files in the right place for you like some of the utils for games like The Sims(2).

Try updating to the latest version of whatever graphics card your laptop has (right click on a blank bit of desktop then select properties, select the settings tab and it should tell you the make/model of GPU).

That sucks, especially since technically the owner no longer exists. I guess its time to abuse the credit card again....