Building A Pc For Poser 7

[BenR]

Howdy y'all.

I have been hired to build a pc for one specific purpose- to render Poser 7 as fast as possible.

I was looking at possibly an AMD 4x4... but I think that may be overkill.

So, my request of you all is to build a machine using parts from any online retailer you choose.

The budget is $1200ish for hardware alone. I realize the 4x4 is no where near that price, $1200 is just what the client's first budget proposal was.

I ****greatly**** appreciate any help with this project!

keyboard, mouse, optical drives, floppy/card readers need not be included!

[BenR]

Oh yeah, and please list links to the hardware if possible!!

And what version of Windows would you recommend? I was thinking XP64 would be needed to read 4gigs or more of ram...

[martymas]

is it for games or basic needs

here where ilive you can build a basic compt

whithese components

cpu 1 gig $90

ram 1gig $57 [second hand]

hdd 80gig $100 [second hand]

perifial cards

approx $60 all up

now the tricky part the operating sys

windows is the dearest

xp pro when i first get mine was $680

but it is very much cheaper now

i helped a freind to install

windows home

and the disk cost $180

but you can also get several linux

sys free

like kubuntu or ubuntu ect

so for roughly $447 probably cheaper than that

you have a workable compt

but with the amount of capital

you have in hand

you can ad the

components as you see fit

480

[Besttechie]

Hey Ben,

I didn't know what Poser 7 was so I looked it up the specs needed to run this application don't seem to be very intense at all - check it out:

System Requirements:

Windows

* Windows 2000, XP or Vista

* 700 MHz Pentium class or compatible (1 GHz or faster recommended)

* 512 MB system RAM (768 MB or more recommended)

* OpenGL enabled graphics card or chipset recommended (recent NVIDIA GeForce and ATI Radeon preferred)

* 24-bit color display, 1024 x 768 resolution

* 1 GB free hard disk space (4 GB recommended)

* Internet connection required for Content Paradise

* DVD-ROM drive

I can recommend some stuff for you, just wanted to point that out for you. Now obviously you shouldn't go bare minimum. However, for $1200, you could build a pretty decent system for someone.

Check out the Intel Core 2 Duo (At least an E6600), 2GB of RAM will suffice, Go with an Intel board as they run their own chips the best, Perhaps a nVidia 8600GT even a 7600GT which is what I have should be fine, Hard Drive wise I like Western Digital or Seagate can pick up a 320GB SATA 2 for cheap, and in terms of OS I like Vista Ultimate it works for me and you can get it for $200 or a little less, however, it'd be the OEM version which is fine. Of course, you could go XP Pro, but if you do go with the 32 bit version.

My personal opinions. If you have any other questions let me know.

B

[BenR]

Well, I appreciate the comments!

I have done a little deeper research into Poser 7, and discovered a few things that might help narrow down what hardware to use.

1. Poser 7 will use no more than 2 gigs of ram.

2. Poser 7 will use no more than 2 cores (it can use 4, but that is 'experimental').

That being said, I also have been told by someone 'in the know' that Poser 7 isn't available in a 64bit version.

Now, here's some contradictory comments I got from the same sources:

Poser 7 is 32 bit, and will not use more than 2 gigs ram. A system with more ram will render faster though.

Poser won't work right on Vista (cannot confirm or deny this, btw)

4 gigs of ram or more require 64 bit OS.

So, I guess the best thing to do would be to weed out the fact from fiction... does anyone have a 64bit cpu and 64bit Windows? Maybe there is a demo of Poser 7 and someone could demo it for me...???

Jeff, I will cut you a check for something if you can 'hold my hand' on this. I say something cuz I don't know the full budget yet...

[Besttechie]

Ben,

I can answer these questions for the most part, however, I'll answer them tomorrow as it's currently 1:46AM and I need to head to bed.

I'll get back to you tomorrow sometime.

B

[JSKY]

Morning BenR

I would suggest a higher-end graphics card. If your client is going to be doing a lot of rendering, so one with a larger amount of RAM.

I don't know what they have in mind for their work with Poser 7. But a card with 256 or, even better if you can find one with 512 if your into higher-end rendering.

Other then what has been suggested, the graphic card will make the difference they'll need. And the higher-end graphic cards could take half the money their willing to spend. If they want to get the full graphic capabilities and still have their machine run smooth.

Even if their just starting out and doing small stuff, It won't be long before they want to try something way more difficult I'm sure. You can't help but to start pushing the graphics to the limit. The processor can handle it, It's going to be the graphics card that will make the big difference in the end.

[shanenin]

for a production machine, I would recommend 32bit windows XP, it seems more stable and faster with most apps. As to the ram, my first thought was 3gbs, but 2gbs may be better. You can run a matched pair(2gbs total) of 1gb sticks in dual channel mode for increased performance. When it comes to rendering, this would be noticeable. If the program is able to use more ram then 2gbs, then 3gbs may be a better route, even not running in dual channel mode.

[BenR]

Would you recommend 32bit Windows???

Why not 64bit? I thought it would be easier to just bite the bullet and upgrade to 64bit now, since this type of machine would *definitely* eventually need a 64bit OS... perhaps sooner than later, if the ram is raised to 4 gigs total or more.

Has anyone ever run Poser in a virtual machine? What are the issues with doing it that way? (I have used VMs before, and I know there is no 3d acceleration.. can't Poser do a straight CPU render? My research into this leads me to believe it is *all* CPU renders, except the preview render mode which uses OpenGL- NOT D3D)

The budget for this machine just got inflated by the client... so I guess the new limit is $2400 for hardware... the funds will be made available during the first week of October- gives time to nail down the best machine possible.

Does anyone out there use Poser 7 right now??? If so, please tell me so I can ask you a few questions...

NOTE: Poser 7 Commercial can be installed a TOTAL of 4 times!!! In the course of helping me, do NOT waste one of your 4 installs!

heh... that note above is what is limiting me getting help... can't play guinea pig if you only get 4 shots per purchase...

The client is currently using Poser 5. Currently, it looks like I will upgrade their current machine first, then purchase the new one. Any ideas what AGP card/brand/model to buy?

Thanks for all the help people, I felt like I was in over my head!

[Besttechie]

Now, here's some contradictory comments I got from the same sources:

Poser 7 is 32 bit, and will not use more than 2 gigs ram. A system with more ram will render faster though.

Poser won't work right on Vista (cannot confirm or deny this, btw)

4 gigs of ram or more require 64 bit OS.

Okay, 32 bit or not...I doubt that this program can use a full 2GB of RAM by itself and I doubt it will need that much to process whatever it's doing. Now, that being said, you can go with 3GB of RAM and still have a dual channel - go with 2 1GB sticks, and 2 512MB sticks. However, if you do that you're going to throw away 2 512MB sticks and replace them eventually with 2 1GB one's when you go 64 bit to get the 4GB total.

If you're going to go with a 64 bit OS at the moment go with Vista Ultimate or at least Home Premium. It definitely is the way of the future, but not for a while which is why I'm saying and others as well you can go 32 bit for now. The system requirements for Poser 7 say it will work with Vista so I don't see why it wouldn't.

And yes, you need the 64 bit OS in order to see the 4GB of RAM, since obviously a 32 bit OS can not address it.

Hope that helps Ben, if you need anything else just post.

B

[BenR]

Well, this build will hopefully be a worthy rendering machine for years...

They want to be able to do multiple renders simultaneously... so I just figured if I double the ram it could do it.

They also want to 'future-proof' the machine as much as possible...

Does anyone know what kinds of issues 64bit XP has? I understand Vista is what it *should* have, but that is one aspect the client will not budge on...

Unless VMs can run all the software beautifully... which I doubt...

Put another way-

These people despise Vista and believe it will go the way of ME within a year. Nothing can change their view.

Can you please post a pros and cons of using Vista 64bit over XP 64bit ?

Thanks!

[JSKY]

I think allot of people are waiting for Vista's SP1 to come out before making the switch.

Like XPs SP2. It basically changed the whole XP experience. SP1 for XP was just major glitch fixes, it was SP2 that made XP what it is today. Thats what SP1 is supposed to be for Vista.

As for which graphics card to suggest..... That opens up a big can of worms... LOL

But I'll let others argue over which one is better. Myself, I like nvidia cards. But there are those who will push ati... But for now the newer and better cards are mostly PCI Express. Which are good setups.

[jcl]

And yes, you need the 64 bit OS in order to see the 4GB of RAM, since obviously a 32 bit OS can not address it.

Nit: operating systems that support the IA-32 Physical Address Extensions can theoretically support physical address spaces as large as 4 petabytes (52-bit addresses).¹ Microsoft's client systems seem to be the only major IA-32 operating systems that don't support more than 4 GiB of memory. (Their server systems are another story: Windows Server 2003 supports up to 128 GiB).

x86 is a strange and horrible architecture.

¹ The original PAE implementation in the Pentium Pro extended the address space to 2³⁶ bytes. The AMD64 spec extended it to 2⁵² bytes but the implementations have ranged from something like 2³⁶ for Intel's NetBurst EM64T products to 2⁴⁰ for AMD's K8.

Edited September 5, 2007 by jcl

[Besttechie]

And yes, you need the 64 bit OS in order to see the 4GB of RAM, since obviously a 32 bit OS can not address it.

Nit: operating systems that support the IA-32 Physical Address Extensions can theoretically support physical address spaces as large as 4 petabytes (52-bit addresses).¹ Microsoft's client systems seem to be the only major IA-32 operating systems that don't support more than 4 GiB of memory. (Their server systems are another story: Windows Server 2003 supports up to 128 GiB).

x86 is a strange and horrible architecture.

¹ The original PAE implementation in the Pentium Pro extended the address space to 2³⁶ bytes. The AMD64 spec extended it to 2⁵² bytes but the implementations have ranged from something like 2³⁶ for Intel's NetBurst EM64T products to 2⁴⁰ for AMD's K8.

Ah, well thanks for clearing that up for jcl, I didn't know that and appreciate the info.

B