Just tried the Vue6 infinite PLE. Using a dual Mac G5 2 gig, 4 gig ram. Rendering just a test with a water plane, one terrain (unaltered), non GI atmosphere, no vegetation at anything other then the lowest quality setting is so SLOOOOW compared to C4D 10 with sky, infinite plane with water texture (can't remember where I downloaded it) and a simple terrain mockup. I can't imagine how long it would take to render an animation in Vue6 Infinite on my machine. Is this typical, or is Vue6 not so time consuming on other machines (PC or MacIntel). PC users? Does Vue6 render satisfactorily in your opinion on a similarly spec'd windows machine? I know my 2-gig dual g5 is now far from the fastest machine around but I wouldn't call it slow either. I know xStream is not available for the Mac, but have any of you PC folks with C4D compared rendering from within C4D to Vue6 Natively? Is there a speed difference.

C4D is one of the fastest renderers around, the comparison is tough, and Vue can't win. Vue isn't fast, but there are many options to speed up render times. What atmosphere were you using? If the default spectral atmo, you can't compare it to a C4D sky. plus, this atmo is set to global ambience, which is the fastest " GI" solution with Vue, but an advanced lighting model nonetheless. You can lower the atmo quality down to -1 without any artifacts, and it will  render almost twice as fast.
Now about xStream, C4D elements are rendered by C4D, and Vue elements are rendered by Vue so there is no speed difference.

Quote - Just tried the Vue6 infinite PLE. Using a dual Mac G5 2 gig, 4 gig ram. Rendering just a test with a water plane, one terrain (unaltered), non GI atmosphere, no vegetation at anything other then the lowest quality setting is so SLOOOOW compared to C4D 10 with sky, infinite plane with water texture (can't remember where I downloaded it) and a simple terrain mockup. I can't imagine how long it would take to render an animation in Vue6 Infinite on my machine.

If you want to know the meaning of  "slow render" just try Terragen 2 Technology Preview. I think Vue6 is at least 5/6 times faster! If you go to my pitiful gallery you will see a 16 minutes render with Vue and a 1 hour render with TG2... on TG2 forums there are people talking about 100+ hours renders

To bruno021: I have an awful lot to learn before approaching you skill, thanks a lot for you comment.

Agree with alex, TG2 is impossibly slow.

You want slow try Bryce :)