Hrm. Couple of things here. First because it seems simplest, you'll never get a real-time render that includes all of the lighting effects, post-render effects, and so forth. 3d applications, as opposed to 3d game engines, are built around a "set up then render" philosophy. The Assembly Room view is can be driven by either an Eovia engine or OpenGL -- the latter can make some use of your graphics card hardware. In either case, this view is optimized towards helping you place your objects and helpers accurately. It does not attempt to do real texture densities, reflections, or numerous other effects that appear only when you commit to Render. A useful tool is the Plop Render; there is a camera icon that, when selected, allows you to draw a marquee anywhere on your current window. That area will be rendered, ONCE, with all the bells and whistles. From your comment about the Preview Window, it is possible your Main Window(s) is not in solid or solid textured mode. I believe these controls are on the upper left of the window -- you can change modes down to wireframe or even bounding box there. The white box you see is a preview of what your currently selected camera will render. It should take the proportions specified in the render camera dialogs in the Render Room. You will notice that most of the navigation tools keep this window centered in your Assembly Room window, but some -- like scrolling -- do not. There is quite a bit more to it than that but the above should help you get a start. Check your preferences. Check your window settings. Look for "Interactive Render" as the keyword.