At the moment I'm using Poser Pro 2014 and I'm looking very soon to get the latest version. Presently I have an Nvidia 4070 graphics card that I'd like to pass on to my son's PC. Anyway, I know that with the older version of Poser the GPU doesn't really get used but I'm sure the latest version can make use of it. As I don't play games on PC and only really use Poser, Vue and Blender when I can get time I was looking at getting something other than an Nvidia gaming card. They're expensive and the latest 50 series isn't exactly confidence inspiring. I know AMD are about to release some new Radeon series cards but there's the Intel Arc too. Has anyone used one with the latest version of Poser? If so, is it worth buying or should I look at a Radeon or stick with Nvidia? Just asking for thoughts and opinions on this, thanks.

If you're thinking about using Superfly, having a graphics card that can do GPU rendering is a must. I have Poser 13 (the latest version) and an Nvidia 2060 card. Most times, using that to render is faster than rendering firefly. Firefly only does CPU rendering. I can't speak about anything on the Radeon side because I don't have one.

HEH, well, sonny boy has just announced he's going for a 5090 when they're sorted out and that my 4070 isn't up to it. He plays Star Citizen at 4K on a PC built around a Ryzen 9700XTX. So, it looks like I'm keeping the 4070 after all. 

Which is a good thing as Poser 13 will be able to use that with no problems and be several times faster than doing CPU only.

That will save you money. And that's not a bad card. The 40 series wasn't even out when I last updated. I went with the 2060 because it was the one that had the best VRAM in my price range.  I knew it would be slower, but I tend to render crowd scenes and needed more memory for that. I still max out sometimes, but not as bad as I would if I had chosen speed over memory.

Optix is an Nvidia only tech.  Nvidia has dropped support for 32-bit CUDA apps with the RTX 5000 series of cards.

Is this going to affect the Optix engine in Poser 13?  Who knows  - I posted this over on Poser Technical forum about a week ago.  No response so far.

Ref:

https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5615/

https://www.techpowerup.com/332763/nvidias-32-bit-physx-waves-goodbye-with-geforce-rtx-50-series-ending-32-bit-cuda-software-support

Poser is a 64-bit app, so I don't see any reason it would affect Poser. You can't use 32-bit drivers in 64-bit apps anyway.

The 4070 is a good card, just be sure you don't only upgrade from Poser 2014 Pro to Poser 11 - since I seem to recall that 11 can't 'see' the 40-series cards. But I assume you'll be going for the latest Poser 13.x. You may, however also want Poser 11 on your PC alongside a newer version - since 11 is needed for compatibility with the newly free E-on Vue.

The other problem you'll have is your old Python scripts and utilities, re: the change from using Python 2 to Python 3 - this page of links will help you out with that: https://jurn.link/dazposer/index.php/p12/

Thanks for the advice! I'll stick with the 4070 at the moment, and so will my son. Have you seen the price of a 5090!! Anyway, it shouldn't be long now until I make my purchase, I've been a Poser user since version 5 and although I mainly used it for putting figures and props into Vue (I had version 6 until the latest one became free) I still like to support it over other software. I'll look into the Poser 11/13 and Python issue now you've mentioned it, its not something I was really aware of.

The 4070 is incredibly fast and stable with P13. OptiX rendering will change your life for Superfly, seriously. I threw every benchmark scene imaginable at it and it handled them all seamlessly. You will love the difference it makes.

I wish, though that someone would rewrite those old scripts of make new ones. Their loss is like trying to build scenes with one hand tied behind my back, especially when I look at what is available for the other software in that regard.

I wish, though that someone would rewrite those old scripts of make new ones. Their loss is like trying to build scenes with one hand tied behind my back, especially when I look at what is available for the other software in that regard.

That's pretty much why I have ported EZSkin. There are other scripts that I wanted to port but due to copyright problems, I have completely rewritten some for my personal usage, for example one that was proposing some better management of Poser's lights:

In my version, double-clicking on a area/spot light activate its camera, easing to manage the light position.
At I'm retired now, and as I have quite some free time, I could study some missing tools and write newer versions without copyright problems.

That would be absolutely lovely. I have some suggestions right off the bat:

a script that writes layers to add dirt, blood, scars (like SkinVue's old script or the ones by DraagonStorm);

a script that automates vascularity layers (the Vascularity script on this marketplace);

a script that adds special effects to skin (ghostly effects like the wonderful ones by surreality (Ghostly Visions here);

one that adds tears, holes, rust and dirt to any material (this was over at the other software site Hybrid Grunge was the name) Bundle

a tattoo script like all of those by Shana here that don't work any more, sadly.

And that's just to bring it on par to what is easily available for the other software for one-click solutions that disappeared for Poser completely and now they are all painstakin manual processes.

If you'd consider those, I am happy to chat and test if needed.

A script that shows the start and end of the depth of field of a camera as well as just the middle would be so helpful.

You guys aren' t missing ideas!

Noted, thanks  

Now that I'm just thinking about gloss on skin: that's one option I could relatively easily add to EZSkin: there's face and face_blush, skin and skin_blush. I could easily add something like skin_gloss and face_gloss.
Example: EZSkin classic

Same with an additional gloss layer, using Cycles' Anisotropic:

Y-Phil posted at 1:14 PM Sat, 1 March 2025 - #4493990

You guys aren' t missing ideas!

Noted, thanks  

(thanks for coming to my TEDtalk--and I deeply appreciate your efforts with EZSkin updates and elsewhere, don't mistake this as a criticism of YOU!) :)

Y-Phil posted at 1:14 PM Sat, 1 March 2025 - #4493990

You guys aren' t missing ideas!

Noted, thanks  

I have been saying this since P13 came out, sir...I don't think Poser can be on par with the other software in popularity until these functions are automated and I am perfectly OK with paying for these as add ons, because they save effort and time and they WERE available for earlier versions. It baffles me why we are expected to do everything by hand when the majority of users are NOT MatRoom or Python experts.

(thanks for coming to my TEDtalk--and I deeply appreciate your efforts with EZSkin updates and elsewhere, don't mistake this as a criticism of YOU!) :)

Nope, TEDTalk was referring to how I always push for what I think would make Poser more marketable (and also I'm rather straightforward without being, I hope, a butt). :)

I AM sincere, I'd love Poser to finally not be a laughingstock word amongst 'serious' 3D people and would get a ton more marketing (quality marketing, that is) than what it has now. It baffles me why it is treated like a stepchild on this very site (although that seems to be slowly changing, EXCEPT inasmuch as quality content presentation is severely lacking STILL).

Okay, I stop blabbing offtopic.

It might be off topic but its really interesting and useful to know.

Back with the graphics cards, I've just been sent a message by my son taken directly from the Nvidia site showing a 5090 for over £3000! Think I'll persuade him to stick with having my 4090 for now. The card has gone from the site now so they've either sold them all already or there was a mistake. 

After watching YouTube reviewers it seems that its all about how the top cards perform in games and very little about how they compare in the creativity area. Seem like we're left just following on and hoping for the best.

As I'm not using my PC for essential work I think I'll give an Intel Arc A770 a go once I've passed on my 4070. 

Hmm, should have been 4070 not 4090. 

Given the current state of AI, I wonder if nVidia isn't creating 5000-type cards just for dedicated AI processors, and those video cards are just a poor excuses for insulting prices (in the sense that customers are being taken for fools, ie. not really thought to be sold as is), with some cards even having burnt-out connectors despite standard hardware (from what I've heard).

In my opinion, the 4000 series remains the best.

You may be on to something; crypto and AI farming is intense.
I hope to hold onto this 4070 Ti for a long time.

phil_lawson posted at 6:14 AM Sun, 2 March 2025 - #4493998

It might be off topic but its really interesting and useful to know.

Back with the graphics cards, I've just been sent a message by my son taken directly from the Nvidia site showing a 5090 for over £3000! Think I'll persuade him to stick with having my 4090 for now. The card has gone from the site now so they've either sold them all already or there was a mistake. 

After watching YouTube reviewers it seems that its all about how the top cards perform in games and very little about how they compare in the creativity area. Seem like we're left just following on and hoping for the best.

As I'm not using my PC for essential work I think I'll give an Intel Arc A770 a go once I've passed on my 4070. 

It isn't going to get any better anytime soon - Leather Jacket Man has already stated that Nvidia isn't a graphics card company, it is an AI company.  Going forward, only expect the scraps to make it to consumer level video cards.

If you want to see how GPUs do with productivity tasks, don't watch gaming YT channels.  There are a number out there that do cover productivity tasks.

I have an a770, and I am very pleased with it.  It is a productivity monster, and it games at 1440p high.  I also purchased an a310 just for AV1 encode/decode; I am reripping all of my physical media to AV1 to save drive space.

I want to once again agitate for moving away from Opitx and going with a render engine that is GPU agnostic (Cycles or the AMD ProRender engine) - there is no future with Nvidia.

I want to once again agitate for moving away from Opitx and going with a render engine that is GPU agnostic (Cycles or the AMD ProRender engine) - there is no future with Nvidia.

Optix is just an option in Cycles, just as Cuda is. 

No one is being stopping anyone from building a high end CPU system, for cpu renders.

Honestly, the AMD Prorender is a horrible engine, but at the same time, a powerful render engine on AMD hardware...

And yes, I have Prorender installed...... Cycles rendering with Optix destroys Prorender...

Now that HIP on AMD GPU's is the only way to make Prorender fast at all, it is basically turning into an AMD exclusive engine if you want to get anything done in a timely fashion. Why would people want to promote that?  That is just what the 3D community needs... A render engine that all but requires an AMD GPU for speed, when basically no one has an AMD GPU in 3D.....

It didn't really help matters, that when AMD bought ATI they kicked Brook GPU to the curb..... Brook GPU turned into Cuda, and AMD kicked it to the curb when it was massively faster on ATI hardware.... (I was a tester for it, thru a program at Stanford...)   

Not a single AMD fanboy will ever point that massive blunder out either.........

Nvidia dominates the GPU market for a reason, and it isn't going anywhere. 88% dominated......

It doesn't make any sense to alienate all the people that have Nvidia hardware either....

CUDA is currently Nvidia only.  ZLUDA may be an option in the future - but that future isn't coming anytime soon.

And $700+ 12gb cards aren't the future for Poser users.

It's just a thought but can anyone tell me what are the choices of the dropdown box under the Render Options menu? (I'm being lazy and not looking for the info myself, thought I'd ask first). If the CPU is there maybe an i9 is an option or the AMD equivalent . Seeing as I'm going to be in the market for a new graphics card I'll probably replace the whole PC. Although I've had Poser for a long time I've not really had time to learn a lot of it. Ah, but retirement arrives and I want to keep my mind active.

RedPhantom posted at 12:42 PM Sat, 1 March 2025 - #4493989

A script that shows the start and end of the depth of field of a camera as well as just the middle would be so helpful.

even if it does not show start and end, it shows the focus much better than the cross :)

RedPhantom posted at 12:42 PM Sat, 1 March 2025 - #4493989

A script that shows the start and end of the depth of field of a camera as well as just the middle would be so helpful.

I find this really helpful: https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/77187/focus-for-poser

even if it does not show start and end, it shows the focus much better than the cross :)