Quote - Well, If you render at a lower resolution then try to blow it up to a larger one to print it high res on poster stock, you lose a lot in the translation.  The software would have to interpolate the increase in res.  Rendering in a very high res to begin with means no loss of image quality.

That's a given, but what the real world trade-off is vs an ideal is what I meant. With high res image maps you might have a mem issue...this can really choke...I would watch commit charge. Might even have a multi-thread issue. Using a plugin? Did you test your ram fully w/ a ram test program? You are really gonna have to go thru and eliminate things...unfortunately.

No need to think outside the box....
    Just make it invisible.