No, it's not macho at all, how can you see what it will look like in a render system that doesn't show what it will look like? OpenGl style rendering was added to 3dgraphics many years ago because people whith no patience wanted 'instant pictures' rather than having to wait anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Software targeted at 'commercial users' who had deadlines imposed on them by non techies (who knew naff all about cgi) was built with 'headline features' "New TurboNerd 3D v2.0, $2000, features HDRI!" Marketing goon 1 : We nead a headline feature... Tech: we came up with this thing called High Definition Reflected Images, its like reflection maps but better MG1: No no no no no, the accronym sounds ok but we cant jack the price $500 over v1.0 for anything with reflection image in the name, we need something more dynamic... Marketing goon 2: Dynamic, dynamic, hey how about High Dynamic Range Image? MG1: zogging brilliant, ok what does it do Tech: it's a cheesy reflection map to replace raytraced reflections, cuts rendertimes by 80%, and the new system means you only get a 70% drop in quality.... OpenGl was invented for GAMES, not high spec cgi, you want to see an opengl render, look at the viewport, thats all your getting, you don't need to 'render' unless you want a pic bigger than your viewport. Personally I just use zoom, its faster.