What are yours? I'm talking about the steps you take before rendering to ensure the system doesn't hang. I'm not talking about the sensible things, like saving the work or running a memory cleaner. For example: 1. Never Render with the Library Bar Visible! 2. Do a sketch render first to magically "Clean the Palette" before rendering. I ask because sometimes Poser just goes on and on and on without faltering for no apparent reason. Noticing this, I've begun to wonder what subtle nuances keep it running smoothly and what idiosynchricies cause it to lock up. -WTB

burn incense, light white candles and play drum&bass cds quietly in the background? lol - sorry, couldn't resist. I haven't developed any with poser yet, but I know what you mean. I've developed "rituals" with other programs that I use. I'm not sure they make a difference in anyway except to provide me peace of mind. Still, I'd be loath to quit using them.

Before a render I ensure that a figure or prop is selected and never a camera or light.

orange : lol* perhaps some voodoo magic!! Oh , yes, someone should modell a voodoopuppet and some needles!!!A gift for all newbies that enter here:-))

Saving the PZ3 works for me, if I spend a lot of time setting it up and forget to save it will invarably hang up! However, it is always easier the second time.

I save everything and reboot before a major render. Have to get those stale electrons out of the system, don't you know. Renders require minty fresh, new electrons.

One month ago I purchased a new PC (Athlon XP, 512 MB Ram, Windows XP).
Since then I didn't have any hangup at all. :D

I generally, but not always it seems, try to make sure my PC is turned on. Had wondered for years why some renders took so long.

I invariably forget to save before rendering--so I end up saying a lot of little prayers to the Poser gods: Mesho, Rendella, and Crashy. Of course, sometimes the answer is "no".

I leave out a saucer of milk for the gremlins and bug faeries. It seems to help. During the holidays, when I substituted eggnog instead, I discovered that a bit of rum added to the mixture works extremely well. Get 'em stinking drunk, and they'll never find their way to your machine.

I hide all the tools and library bar, save, then make a duplicate of the pz3 file, before rendering any thing about say...800x600 anti-aliased. Then I get more coffee, and have a smoke.

mi-scha have right...Before two months install XP pro ,must because Me can't work with new 2x 512 Mb of RAM,and now is everything all right,no crushes.... Maybe you can't belive...one little test ...same scene ,not too big,posette with one three cloths, and res is 640x480 ...but rendering in same time in Vue..and P4 and Max 3.1....whoah...max is first finish ,than P4,and Vue come to end for 1 min...very slow like alvays. Oh,superstitions..I almost forgot ...I have an brown dog.. Ciao

On my old machine, my list of Poser Voodoo tricks would be way too long to list here.. mainly keeping eveyting at multiples of 256 for light settings (map size, or texture maps, save often, keep all fingers and toes crossed when about to render... and I could still crash 50% of the time :) But then I got my new machine, WinXp, 1.7 G processor, 1 Gig of ram.... no problems any more! I can render multiple V2's or M2's, fully loaded with props and hi-rez textures, etc. Havn't crashed yet! Now I am not saying that I still don't cross my fingers and toes before I render, but I am loosing the emotional need to do so ;) My main suggestion is to sacrifice as many ram chips you can to Mosca's poser gods (btw, you left out Run'tm Err-Or the God of Poser frustration -Trav

I always save first, ofcourse. Then (in windows OS) I click on the desktop icon, right click a blank spot on the desktop for the pop up window and select refresh. Actually, I find myself doing this quite a bit even while working in Poser. Yeah, I have rambooster too, but this seems to work as well - if not better. Er, or maybe I am just superstitious.... :O)