I still occasionally use Poser 5 for doing simple tasks and renders, just to get a quick idea of how things are progressing and because the parameter dials are so responsive compared to all the versions that have followed.

However, I've noticed that when composing multiple object scenes, the program will suddenly stop loading new models that I've attempted to add. I'm not talking huge crowds here, just groups of more than three. My Dell is less than a year old, has eight gigs of memory and two 3.8 processors.

Seems to me that given P5's modest optimal system requirements, I shouldn't be having this problem. I've never encountered it in Poser 6, 7, or Pro.
Your thoughts on the problem would be appreciated.

 It is tired?  Seriously, Poser 5 was considered one of the buggiest of the Poser versions.

Quote -  It is tired?  Seriously, Poser 5 was considered one of the buggiest of the Poser versions.

True enough, but with all the service backs I loaded back in the day, the thing should be able to handle such modest demands. Really, the only feature the program has that I like is the sensitivity of the parameter dials, which makes character creation and posing with V3 and M3 so quick and efficient.
After all these years, those two remain my favorite figures.

Modest requirements on new hardware can be just as bad as high requirements on modest hardware.eg many older programs get conniptions on more then one processor/cores or don't know what to do with large amounts of RAM or run all over themselves in a modern OS. It may just be time to put p5 to sleep and move on.

Poser 5 does not work well under Vista or later... it has weird issues even if you do get it installed and running... it is not supported on those Platforms.