I have had Poser 5 running as the only application and if I look at Task Manager (WinXP Pro) it shows Poer.exe using 50% (max) and System Idle holding the rest! Seems pretty inefficient to have a P4 2.8 GHz processor if Poser is only going to use half of it at any time! (I have 512 MB RAM BTW) Thanks, Shogakusha

If you hit control-alt-delete and select task manager from the menu that comes up (button on bottom of little window), it will give you quite a few options. One shows you all the things currently running. Another one shows the processes and their memory usage. I've got about 112 listed in my memory usage part of this thing. You must keep in mind that there are a lot of processes that your computer does that won't be shown. Windows requires quite a bit of your processor. Unfortunately, it seems to require a lot more than other versions of windows. Kristta

Right! I was looking at Processes and associated CPU, which NEVER gets above 50%, and while I understand that my OS, anti-virus and others are using some resources from the CPU, I can see that the System Idle process is generally using the bulk of my remaining CPU. It just seems odd to me that I have not seen Poser pull more than half my CPU. SHold be a setting somewhere for that. Thanks!

In my experience most applications will not use 100% unless they really need it. When rendering Poser will probably shoot up to 100% on your system as it does on mind. But generally an application does not need the whole 100% For example, right now I ahve Firebird open, I'm writing something in Microsoft Word, ICQ is running and so is iTunes which is merrily blasting out some music, my CPU is only at an average of 7%. CPU usage is a funny thing, your CPU pushes through an enourmous amount of instructions, but most of those instructions are completed in nanoseconds and won't register too well. That's why when your machines does shoot to 100% for a period of time, you generally notice every really begins to grate. Not sure if this helps, but there you go. Best wishes Jody

Jody......hook it to a massive network and see what it does!!!!!! I understand why we get brand new computers every two years where I work. Kristta

I am a network administrator myself, networks have so much crap flying about on them. :-)

Jody, I understand what you are saying. When I say peaks at 50%, I refer to while rendering, and my system is kinda hanging out, I can see my CPU measure for the Poser.exe process hit 50% and stay there until my render finishes. If System Idle is the next biggest process at say 45%, that just seemed wrong to me. Especially since my nifty nVidia card does absolutely nothing for Poser and Poser relies totally on my processor. Ah, well. Thanks for all the comments! Shogakusha

That is bizarre if it's not using it all, hmm, perhaps you've got an underachiever, lazy CPU :-)

You probably have a hyper threading processor, and poser runs only 1 thread. Your task manager should show 2 processors and one of those will be fully utilized, by poser Your computer will utilize the other when it has another tread to run.

It is a hyper threading processor. Well, I guess that answers it, and Poser fails to use hyper threading and hardware acceleration. It's a good thing I LIKE this program }-) Thanks! Mystery solved.

50%???!!! Don't touch anything! lol

Shogakusha, software that isn't WRITTEN for using more than one thread just won't do - love it or leave it ;-) Willy

... That is: it's good, you love it :-) Willy

Poser's still using 1980's technology, so it's not exactly a resource hog... unless it's looking for a missing file. Hyperthreading, huh... hmmmm... gonna have to look into that one. ^_^

I'm only a network queue administrator, but I know from experience that as you approach 100%..thingss .gggggeeeetttt ...verrrryyy....;) Of course, I've heard rumors that if Poser can't find a file sometimes, it will gladly use 100% of your resources..;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

I married the network admin here. I'm one of the users of the network. I spend most of my lunch hour each day hearing how clueless some people are. We had a virus get in not too long ago. We were all warned not to open the attachment as it was a virus. We had a guy actually open the attachment to "see what it would do". Needless to say, I don't ever want to be a network admin.

I have the same problem with the same P4 2,8 gHz processor and it's because this processor is or mimics dual CPU and poser is only 1 process and 1 process can only be processed by one of both real/virtual cpus, thereby Poser will only use max 50% (= 100% capacity of one of the CPUs)

I hope the include a better (more stable) version of a renderer and a renderer that is spread over more process threads than it is now,, in Poser 6, sort of like 3DSMax can do ;)

well, you can watch a DVD while rendering like I do without any hitch

Message edited on: 08/03/2004 11:18

Message edited on: 08/03/2004 11:19

If you want Poser to take advantage of the entire CPU and speed up its rendering process, you can shut off hyperthreading in the BIOS when you boot your computer. This will make it use the process as a single CPU rather than as two, and than Poser can use the entire thing. It will slow down what you can do with the computer for other programs that utilize the threading.