Taylor-Made opened this issue on May 09, 2011 · 6 posts
Taylor-Made posted Mon, 09 May 2011 at 10:08 AM
Okay, up front accept the fact that I am a computer idiot. I'm a video editor and spend all my time keeping up on the latest advances in Avid and Aftereffects, so the internal mysteries of Poser and Vista Business 64 remain just that - mysteries.
I currently have Poser 7 installed on a i7 PC with 12 GB of ram and a Nvidia FX4800 video card. It's running Vista Business 64. I can't currently upgrade to Windows 7 due to the version of Avid I'm running.
Poser is installed on the C Drive under Program Files (x86). All my Runtime files are there, too. I don't currently have any external Runtime folders.
I want to install Poser Pro 2010 and keep Poser 7 on the computer - if possible. If not, I need to access all my old Poser 7 Runtime files - figures, poses, props...
What is the best way to do this without causing conflicts? I'm assuming I should put it on another drive.
Can and how can I access my Poser 7 Runtime in Poser Pro 2010? Or do I have to reload all my stuff into Poser Pro?
Sorry for the obviously basic and probably stupid questions, but I need for this installation to go smoothly as a big job is coming up and I need Poser Pro to speed up renerdering and to take advantage of the new lighting.
By the way, how much does Poser Pro speed up rendering in your experience? I know it takes advantage of the 8 core system I'm currently running, and I'm hoping to see a good increase.
Thanks for any advice.
bagginsbill posted Mon, 09 May 2011 at 10:27 AM
Install Poser Pro without any concern about the existing Poser(s). Each version has its own folder - there is no overwriting.
Once you've installed PP2010, go into the library and add the old Poser 7 folder as an external runtime. Everything that is there will show up in the new library, simultaneously with your old stuff. The new style library doesn't force you to look at only one content library at a time, although if you prefer that style, it would do it. There are many options in the new library to customize it.
There is no need to put this on another drive that has anything to do with multiple versions of Poser installed. However, separate drives can be an advantage in special situations, but these have nothing to do with simultaneous versions.
Render performance increases can be dramatic or mild - depends on which features you heavily tax. In best case scenarios, PP2010 can outrender P7 by a factor of 20x. In others, it's about the same.
Make sure you install SR1 for PP2010 bug fixes.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)
Taylor-Made posted Mon, 09 May 2011 at 11:19 AM
Thanks BB.
In keeping with my computer idiocy, you say:
Once I'm in the PP 2010 library, how do I do this? Do I add the entire Poser 7 folder or just the Poser 7 Runtime? And what is the correct procedure for adding the folder, dragging, copy and paste?
Needless to say, I'm feeling really stupid at this point.
bagginsbill posted Mon, 09 May 2011 at 11:29 AM
The manual doesn't cover every subtle thing about Poser, so I'll be happy to clarify things that are not clear. But your first step should be to read chapter 7 of the Poser Pro Reference Manual, which you will find in the program's help menu.
Item #8 in the attached exceprt is the button that adds external runtime libraries.
You simply click that and then choose the parent folder of the Poser 7 runtime, which is almost always the Poser 7 program folder.
The process is documented starting on page 100.
Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)
Taylor-Made posted Mon, 09 May 2011 at 11:34 AM
Thanks BB.
I'm currently waiting for my PP2010 to arrive and I jumped the gun on this post. Reading the manual is certainly the way to go. From what you say, however, it doesn't look like I'll have a problem with the installation.
Thanks for the help.
Schecterman posted Mon, 09 May 2011 at 7:32 PM
Well you wrote "What is the best way to do this without causing conflicts?"
By that, if you mean simple system conflicts, no, as bagginsbill already pointed out.
However, if you use the same runtime folder(s) with Poser Pro as you do with Poser 7, you could run into conflicts where it comes to saving out new figures and/or shaders/and scenes. In other words, you could accidentally overwrite some of your P7 content, and may not be able to use it in P7 any longer.
Personally, when it come to professional work, I don't take the chances and whenever I update to a new version of almost any program I copy my old content into a new directory and then use that for the new program.
So if you have the disk space, I'd recommend copying your entire P7 project runtime folder to another location and then point Poser pro to use the copy, not the original.
...