They arent workarounds, Xantor. they are the basic setting the rendering engine requires to render properly.

Look atLightwave's render engine, and Vue6I's rendering engine.. they are FAR more complex, and require FAR more tweaks for that "perfect render".

EF HAS dumbed down the tech to make it more accessible to te general public, but you do still need to take the time to learn the new features and tools.

Just because an application has a shiny candy coating doesn't mean it doesn;t pack some horsepower under the ood.

Oh, and all this talk about system upgrades and price made me do ome pre black friday shopping... I think I'll be getting a new dual core 64 bi athlon 4200 plus system this Friday, for under $900 with a 19" flat panel monitor, 2 gigs of ddr2 ram, 300 gig hd, and a free update to windows vista in january!

the deal is I get the new system, and I trip down my old system's software install so the wife gets it as an upgrde to her system.

Then her system becomes a networked storage/mp3 player to replace my 5 year old dinosaur system, and it will become just archive storage on the network.

Off topic, anyone know a good videocard dealfor under $200? I never buy thlatest greatest $600 cards, but after a year, their prices drop so far down they become great deals

I'm running a ati x700 pro in my current system, and would want somthing better then that.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.