I know what you mean by the "graininess look". I thought that at first, too. Then I realized what was probably happening...that people didn't want high parameters on their renders (takes a while, sometimes) and settled for less. Now, I'm too lazy but I'm sure someone in the Vue forum can whip this little puppy (pardon the pun) up in a URL right away. It's a sort of grid comparison of rendering (a dog, I believe) with various settings. A simple shadow is provided to show graininess and smoothness with different settings. It's VERY good information. Gebe (Guitta) probably knows the link to it by heart.