Are you sure that Poser is actually running slower with HT on than off - measured on wall clock time? Ignore the 50% cpu figure. Intel is fooling XP into beliving that there are 2 processors, and as Poser is still stuck in a Windows 95 API timewarp it can't possibly use 2 processors, so XP reports 1 CPU, i.e. half your PC, underutilized. If it does run slower in HT mode, then by how much? The difference if small it's the overhead of Intel's HT, but I'd be surprised if it's really that large. Only other thing that could be the cause is those very old API calls in Poser (i.e. that it's not really a Win2K/XP product). To speed up rendering in Firefly play with the bucket size. In terms of actually trying to speed up Slowser 5 outside of Rendering time (assuming that your at SP3), consider removing Content Parasite if you've not already. How much speed up you get varies (not sure why, but related to some or all of: how old your P5 is, how you applied patches, whether you were in CL public "beta", whether IE is your default browser, what prophylatic aids you have implemented on your system.) Instructions over on PoserPros - the Sticky under Poser 5 Tips & Tricks is easiest place to find it. CorrectReference will speed up load time of >50% of the products out there, because all versions of Poser go off on a walk through your entire Runtime everytime they hit a sub-optimal texture reference, even if it's the same reference re-occurring, e.g. eye textures.