First of all the specs: Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit, Vue 8 Complete, Poser 7, NVIDIA 8800 GT graphics card, 4 G of ram. I am running Vue Open GL under Hardware Assisted. I have updated my driver.

My normal workflow is to frequently use the preview render option to determine if I am going in the direction I choose. Such as frequent previews of ecosystems or even people to see that the materials are correct. Vue 8 does preview render correctly but seems to have issues with switching back to the normal state. There are very long hang times and all 4 views go blank. Also, without clicking on anything, the preview render goes away on it's own. Usually when I'm in the middle of looking at the results.

Anyone have a clue what is causing this?

Quote - "Also, without clicking on anything, the preview render goes away on it's own."

That is fairly normal, it happens with me too, in all the Vue versions I've ever used. You can bring back the last render by clicking on the little colored rectangle on the title bar of the view. Alternatively, you can do preview renders to the screen instead of the main view.

Quote - "Vue 8 does preview render correctly but seems to have issues with switching back to the normal state. There are very long hang times and all 4 views go blank."

In the File->Options->Display preferences, try other OpenGL methods. I don't have Vue8 but I think it has 3, software, hardware and the new hardware shader (which is the default, I think). Try each one and see if any behaves better. Also, try to disable anti-aliasing, in the same options panel. Sorry, can't give you more specialized help as I don't have Vue8.

If the previous render goes away and the view switches back to OpenGL, you can click on the "show last render" little icon on the view's header to get it back (it's a small colourful icon, next to the render icon). The hanging must be due to the OpenGL redrawing. Try to reduce some OpenGL features, like Background draw thread, also check if line an scene anti aliasing are on, if so, disable these features. Also check in your render options if you have "Clear OpenGL before rendering" on, this clears the Ogl before a render and forces the redraw after render completes to allow max memory to the render engine, but in your case, this may be helpful to have it off.

This is indeed normal I would say. Vue is VERY demanding for OpenGL power. Your graphic card is okay from what I know, so no need to be worried about that. BUT, I woud propose - if you have not done this already - to switch off the automatic update of the scene preview (right mouse click on the preview window to get this option) and select this only when you want to control your changes. Another tiny little click with big results for me is to switch off the automatic update when you enter numerical values. You find that in the preferences, first tab at the bottom (I think).

Maybe you can post your display preference settings here so that we can see what can be done additionally. I am rendering right now (and probably the next two days), otherwise I would post that screenshot from my settings.

I will try some other settings to see what happens. Until now I have always worked in Wireframe mode and it's been stable for me. I can't find it in the settings anymore so I'm guessing that's no longer available. I'll try to get a screen capture of my current settings and post them.

Nope, wireframe does not exist any longer. So this is no option unfortunately. Sometimes I wish....

I really hate they removed the wireframe option. My Vue always ran like a Champion in wireframe. I suppose a feature request would be out of the question?

Well, when you don't try it they will not think about. The more people ask for something....

Yeah, give us back wireframe, and get rid of this awful GI, we want rock hard, pitch black shadows like in the good old days....
More seriously, I think you can still use wireframe on a per view basis.

I tried each of the three choices for Open GL. For my system, I will have to use either the software or hardware assisted selections. The Open GL 2.1 will work but I lose 20% more resources with it than I do with the others.

Don't choose software, you will lose a lot of visiblity, unless of course your system can't handle hardware accelerated. I also lose some resources by using the shader4 model, but it doesn't mean that resources will drop more. For example I start around 70% (86% in hardware accelerated), but resources are steady after this, no fast dropping.

The hardware assisted and software run about the same on my system. I inserted a cube primitive and textured it with the checkered mat. Open GL 2.1 started at 89 and dropped to 68. In the other 2 resources started at 89 and dropped to 88. I'll try running it on hardware assisted for a while and see if that will work.