Just how much RAM and HD space does Poser need? Yesterday trying to render a large file (8 characters) I got the message "out of memory". But this Mac (G5 2.7GHz dual processor) has 8Gb of RAM and at least 100Gb free space on the drive.

This has happened before even with some smaller files, both in Poser 7 and Pro 2010. Is there something wrong with Poser's use of memory? I've heard of something caled a "memory leak" - is this what's causing the problem - any ideas, please?

try rendering in a 'separate process' , you can set it with a tick box in the render tab of 'general preferences' ( from the 'edit' menu) you can also set how many threads on your CPU that Poser can use.

In the PC world this generaly referes to virtual memory, not ram or hard disk space. I don't know the mac equivalant.

You probably need to remove clutter in your files.  If you don't have a files cleaner like McAfee etc, you can use CleanMgr (Desk Cleanup) a MicoSoft built in program.  Jan

Do you have a 32-bit or 64-bit machine? If you have a 64-bit machine (with a 64-bit OS), are you running the 64-bit version of Poser Pro 2010? If the answer isn't 64-bits for both, you have run out of the amount of virtual memory that Windows allows addressing in 32-bits. (This is certainly what is happening to you in Poser 7.) A given process can only use 2-BM of memory. In practice, Poser runs out at about 1.8. If you render in a separate process, this would be the FFE process. You might open up task manager and turn to the process tab, and note how much memory FFE is using.

With Power Pro 2010 (64-bit), I've been able to use up to 12-MB while rendering.

Quote - Do you have a 32-bit or 64-bit machine? If you have a 64-bit machine

32 bit Mac (not Windows).

Have recently given the system a clean with MacClean

Quote - try rendering in a 'separate process' , you can set it with a tick box in the render tab of 'general preferences' ( from the 'edit' menu) you can also set how many threads on your CPU that Poser can use.

Normally use separate process as using the alternative often crashes

Have you tried closing Poser and shuting down your computer for about 10 seconds, then try rendering your file?  Jan

Texture files (imageMaps) use a lot of memory. Back before I had 4 gig of RAM (which is still spartan) I'd get that error quite frequently even with one character (not 8) and some clothing and a few scene items. Come to find out some of the clothing items and scene items were chewing up a lot of memory, not to mention the figures' imageMaps themselves.

Depending on what your focus is on the image, you might find out what your imageMaps are and how big they are. If they are not a key part of the scene (i.e., they are not seen in closeup where detail is crucial) you might resize them in like Photoshop or the GIMP (which is free and does run on the Mac). Save out the resized images to something else - HeroTorso.jpg -> HeroTorsoSm.jpg, for instance - so you aren't over-writing your original image files, and in the Mat room, change the reference to the new file.

You can do this for bump maps too.

As a rule of thumb, I estimate a dressed up scene as .5 - 0.7 Gb, plus each dressed up character as 0.5 - 0.7 Gb as well. 

The 32-bit Poser is able to address max 3gb user memory, physical or virtual, when the operating systems allows it passing the 2Gb boundary. In Windows this requires setting the 3gb switch, to my understanding it's enabled in recent Mac OS's (and Linux) automatically. For Windows, I published an in-depth tutorial BTW.

3Gb gives room for one scene plus 3 characters (4x 0.7), or at most 5 characters (6x 0.5 Gb). 

My recommendation though is to render like the pro's: all characters separate, separate render passes for lights and masks as well, and the final compo in Photoshop. Don't do it in 3D if it can be done in 2D.

Happy Rendering

Contact Support with your Render Settings and details on the Scene.. Put Attn: John in the Subject so it will come to me

Quote - Have you tried closing Poser and shuting down your computer for about 10 seconds, then try rendering your file?  Jan

Yes. Switched off last night, then opened file first this am and tried render.

Had to reduce file by splitting into two sections and rendering separately then combining in Photoshop.

A couple of other things you can try. First, save a copy of your scene and then use svdl's free script to strip out all the morphs. (I think there is a script in one of the packages at RDNA which also does this.) Second, set preview mode to "wireframe", save, close Poser, and then reopen. This ensures that the textures will only be loaded as needed.

I used to get that error all the time with my old computer (Windows xp, 32 bit, dual core, 4 gigs memory). But I was recently forced to upgrade my system and now with 64 bit operating system, the problem has dissapeared (8 gigs ram, quad core and 64 bit os).  With PC , only a 64 bit OS is able to utilize all of that 8 gigs of ram that you have. I suspect the same holds true with mac.

Just to show you, the finished picture is at

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2165669;

had no problem with previous files full of people/robots/props, as you'll see if you have a shufti at the thumbnails in my gallery.