Hi all I was wondering if anyone could tell me if deleting a ton of stuff (programs, files, ext) from my computer and therefore freeing up space will help in the overall running of my programs??? When I am doing textures I like to have poser open and loaded with whatever I am texturing and my paint program so I can go back and forth and check how it's doing....now this takes me forever just to load never mind waiting time when I actually tell either to do anything lol. Soooo before I go deleting a bunch of stuff I would like to know if it's worth the time and effort. Would it help? Thx.

If the programs aren't running, removing them from your computer won't make a difference. What are the specs of your computer? Processor and it's speed, amount of RAM, Hard drive size and free space, Operating System. It sounds like you don't have enough RAM or you have a slow processor.

Probably not, unless your HD is very low on space. The single biggest factor affecting your machine's current perfomance is RAM, or the lack thereof. A fast processor and plenty of HD space will help but RAM will always be the main factor in cases like this. If you are low on HD space, you will get a slight performance increase if you delete stuff but your computer will still run pretty slow as it pages data to and from the HD. Forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know but computers use free HD space as virtual RAM, which allows them to run programs and work on data that won't fit in physical RAM. Obviously, the more physical RAM you have, the less your HD will have to do the donkey work. It is a good idea to have plenty of free HD space, though. If you don't have a second HD, you should think about getting one around 120GB or more. I'd recommend 1GB minimum RAM with 2GB being ideal. My own computers have 1GB each and I can run Poser, Photoshop, UVMapper Pro and surf the net without any noticable problems.

I guess it depends. I try to keep as much spare "scratch" disk as I can-- I'd have a separate hard drive for Poser, if I could, but on a laptop that isn't too practical, so I put the runtimes on a Firewire. How much actual RAM, actual memory you have, also is figured into this. I have 1G on one laptop, 2 G on the other. And I have about 20G free on my main drive. Lower than that and I have problems rendering. Always have. It might be all in my mind for all I know, but I try to keep that much free. Then defragmenting the drive also helps so the free space is actually free. I haven't loaded up Poser 6 yet, cause I need to free up space to do it, and I've been too screwed up lately physically and mentally to get the job done properly. [Be nice to have one full day of sanity. I'm in the middle of changing meds] I'm not getting rid of programs just transferring them. I hesitate to tell anyone to get rid of stuff-- unless you aren't using them. But if you're wondering if anyone else has better luck with Poser running-- not necessarily faster but more stable-- with less going in the background and a leaner hard drive. Then yes, I have better luck that way. I also try to keep my main runtime very lean-- but this only applies to Poser 5 and higher. The less you have in the Poser 5 and I would guess Poser 6 runtime, the faster it loads and works. Hope this has helped some. Windows XP Pro and home, 1 to 2 G RAM, at least 20G free. Poser 5 with SR4.whatever. Emily

Deleting things won't help unless you are running out of virtual hd space, but there is a program that will kill all th eextra tasks in the background, and that might help a little. Google "enditall".. it kills everything but window's needed tasks. Run if before running poser and your paint program, and when you are done, reboot to restore all the killed programs. I usually also run it right before a online gaming session as well...

If your HD is highly fragmented, defragging can buy you a little speed but probably not much. Killing as many extraneous tasks as possible is probably your best zero cost help. I think it's always a good idea to use Window's configuration editor or something like the freeware "RgeCleaner" to check your startup settings and remove any non-essential stuff from starting in the first place. RealPlayer and Quicktime tend to have little tasks always running for instance. I've used Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative to banish both those beasts altogether. You might also try Fast Defrag 2 which will free up any unused memory. Sometimes killing or exiting a program doesn't free up the used RAM immediately. All these are freeware so it doesn't cost anything to try them.

Enditall will kill them off, without reconfigureing anything at all. ;)

"Enditall will kill them off, without reconfigureing anything at all. ;)" No doubt it will. I'd rather get rid of them entirely though :-) How does it know that some process that I want running shouldn't be killed? Doed it give you an exclusion list?

It lists everything, and you select what you want to retian.. it also flags windows processes for you initiall, but you can uncheck them so they can also be killed. It will "gracefully" terminate them if it can, and if not, you can choose to forcibly kill remaning processes. I've used it when I've gamed online for years now, and if I really need cpu speed or resources, I'll use it as well for that purpose.

Interesting, I'll take a look at it. I see it's no longer free though available varioous places as a free download if one's ethics permit. ZD apparently decided to start charging for all the stuff they used to give away :-)

Message edited on: 04/09/2005 22:28

"My own computers have 1GB each and I can run Poser, Photoshop, UVMapper Pro and surf the net without any noticable problems." funny. I'm doing that plus trueSpace 4.3 on 512mb of Ram.. with no problems. (running on Windows XP Pro, Athlon 1.2, 512mb ram, 70gb HD Space...)

Hmmm not free any longer? That's news to me... I'm running enditall2

Attached Link: http://home.ptd.net/~don5408/toolbox/enditall/http://

From the 1st link Google pulls up for "enditall" "SORRY! Unfortunately the very useful formerly-freeware utility EndItAll2 which I have praised and recommended for years is no longer available free of charge to end users. While there are a number of copies still floating around the web for those who look hard enough due to the intervention of the Ziff-Davis, Inc legal team and their false accusations to my ISP that I personally have been providing their copywrited program, links to the program can no longer be found on this web site. Those prepared to pay for a subscription can find it available at winmag.com"