Or at least help me get mine! Actually I need advice on what components would make a perfect computer for Poser. Would the newest 7800 nvidia graphics card be worth the money? Is processing speed more valuable than RAM? I'm assuming I need a PCI express motherboard. Intel or AMD? If you can lay out the whole system I would appreciate it. If you want to take it a step further and send me a check or money order, that would be great too. Haha. Thanks in advance for any input.

bkmarking :O)

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I'm not an expert, but what always seems to be the two key elements with rendering in Poser is RAM and processor speed. I'd get as much RAM as you can afford, with the absolute fastest processor you can afford.

From what I have gathered in similar threads, RAM ain't so much the issue as processor speed and a whacking great and fast HD. I may be wrong but I believe Poser doesn't use more than 1GB at the most but pages whatever else it needs, hence the need for speed. Ideally a 10000 RPM SCSI drive would be the best bet, but they're still a whole lot more expensive than other options. I suppose you could throw 2GB RAM in there but I don't know if you'd get any kind of performance increase. Processor wise, I'd go for AMD and forget about 64 bit for now, since Poser doesn't use it. Graphics cards don't really come into play with Poser, except for P6, which only uses OpenGL for previews.

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I'm having this computer built and I don't think the 64 bit was that much more, I was thinking it might come in handy for similar and/or future applications. The graphics card itself could be nearly as much as the rest of the system if you go with the greatest and latest.

The graphics card doesn't have much to do with the rendering speed, from what I have read. I bought my graphics card last year, so my information may be a little bit out of date, but isn't NVidia 7800 kinda the standard gamer's card anyway now? Even if it doesn't help with rendering speed, you want to get a nice view of your pictures when they are done. Poser only handles 1 GB of RAM, so get that then load up on speed speed for the processor and hard drive. I can't send you a money order, but I might have a coupon for ramen I could give to you. Does your vendor take coupons?

2 GB of RAM are currently enough for Poser as that's the maximum it'll get from windows to do its thing. That's what you need for rendering when you're not doing anything else on that machine while rendering. Otherwise more RAM for that other application + windows (and probably a dual core CPU ,-)). 4GB are a waste on most current Intel boards as they can't handle that much, wasting up to 1GB of RAM.

Next comes the processor. The faster the better. AMD has better overall performance per $ and per watt.

If you feel like it, get a fast 10000 rpm HDD, it'll help with Posers poor disk IO. But any 100+ GB 7200rpm HDD should provide ok speed.

Graphics cards are only important for Posers Open GL preview, no need for the latest 3D heater. Nvidia provides better Open GL support than ATI. And people, please stop spreading myths, like Poser cannot handle more than 1GB of memory and other "i head that" bullshit...

Message edited on: 07/13/2005 14:46

I would definitely focus more on processor speed than on RAM. I've only got 512MB of RAM and mine runs fine and doesn't lock up since the release of SR1. I prefer AMD (husband recommends AMD and he builds computers used by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and the United States Navy). I don't like Nvidia cards because you constantly have to upgrade your drivers (about once every few weeks) and I've had trouble getting them to work with other software that I use. I use the ATI Radeon cards and have had wonderful success with them.

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Here's a thread that had a detailed discussion of optimal hardward for Poser performance, including input from a tech at e-frontier.

"And people, please stop spreading myths, like Poser cannot handle more than 1GB of memory and other "i head that" bullshit..." I'd tell you where to stick your attitude but since it's a TOS violation, I won't.

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Hi FiveEyedFish, Since you are talkin' 'bout a dream machine, here is mine (with reasons!):

CPU: AMD 4400+ X2 (2 cores, 1MB cache per core. Costs a bit over half the price of the 4800+ X2. OK - so I really want the 4800+ but I'm not a fool. The 4400+ seems to be quite over-clockable if you get good cooling) - Although Poser only has a single process thread and there is currently no real advantage going to 64 bit (at least for Poser), the fact that you have a second CPU core to do some of the other OS processes is going to help things a bit and should make your system very smooth. Also when you are rendering you want to be doing other stuff too - like looking for Poser Freebies?!? It might be that an AMD FX57 actually goes faster but I know which I would prefer. I am not excluding Intel here. The lower spec intel dual cores are actually cheaper than AMD but most test results favour the AMD processors.

MEMORY: Make sure you have at least 2GB and watch out for the dual channel thing. The Motherboard needs to support dual channel DDR (pc3200 or better rated) and you need matched pairs of memory sticks. Low latencies (i.e. high quality branded stuff like Corsair TwinX) are also going to help a little but you will pay a premium for this. You seem to be able to get better latencies on 512 MB sticks than you do on 1 GB sticks - so probably you could get 4 x 512MB but with only 4 slots per motherboard your future memory upgrade options are limited to completely replacing pairs of memory sticks.

MOTHERBOARD: Any suitable Socket 939. I personally like ASUS but you really need to check the specs and see if a particular Mobo has all the features you want, e.g. SATAII, RAID, 4 slots of Dual DDR.

GRAPHICS: Nvidia 7800GTX. This will give lovely interactive pose rendering (in Poser 6) (and great game play if you play games!) but will not help your final rendering (or Poser 5 downwards) at all. Any modern video card that supports OpenGL is likely to be more than adequate for a Poser PC. Nvidia 6600 and above will probably be absolutely fine.

HARD DISK: The solution to speed here is to use striped RAID. Rather than going for a single huge Hard Disk, I recommend two smaller ones. Multiple hard disks pretend to be one very fast hard disk. The seek times are the same as for a single disk but the data throughput roughly doubles. SATA is better than IDE (PATA) and SATAII is better than SATA. Try to get NCQ (native command queueing) too since it is likely to add a bit more "go faster". Ideally you would have 4 Hard Disks for two RAID arrays. Put the OS on a small RAID array (say 120 GB total) and install applications and Poser stuff on a large one (say 300 GB+).

MONITOR: A big one. 19" to 22" CRTs are now quite cheap if you have the desk space.

OS: WinXP Pro. If you are going to go for Win XP 64 bit version you need to be very careful about all of the components because they MUST have 64 bit drivers and not all manufacturers are rushing to write 64 bit drivers. MS has compatibility lists but it is worth checking your chosen product support sites to make sure that 64 bit drivers can be downloaded NOW.

I got all excited just listing the stuff, so I will have to start saving up now.

My poor old system (P4 3.2GHz, GeForce FX5600, non-RAID, 2GB RAM) just seems so slow now.

Regards Jovial.

When you do finally get your dream PC can you please run Jim Burtons Benchmark (see linked thread) performance test render and report the results. Thanx.

The dreamp is, and will always be limited by what you want to use it for. In this case: Poser. I would add one tiny bit of advice here: keep your older puter, or get a cheap one for the Internet and disconnect your main workhorse from all virus scanner, messengers,... Use it for your apps, and nothing else. Personbally I would never go for the latest hardware as you always pay more than it's worth (and in six months it's slow and outdated anyway), abnd instead I'd spend the money on something like Vue5. My idea.

Whenever I need a seriously fast box I call the guys at Maingear and have them build one. Tuning a machine, matching all the components and so on is a area I no longer spend the time to keep up with - those boys are on it like hot-rodders are all over engine specs.

Other than that? I recommend Intel CPU's and nVidia graphics cards. Neither have ever let me down in production - which is more than I can say for ATI :)