sorry I have no idea how to even test for taper settings, taper is usually a hidden setting. as far as what ends up being more expensive, no offense to you RAMWolff but I don't mind responding. Yes plug-ins can start costing money and it is possible by buying all of the plugins that you may actually reach the cost of buying a new copy of poser but there is one thing about the D|S system that is totally different in concept to poser, with Poser the concept is that if you want new features you wait till a new version of poser is created and purchase the whole upgrade. and you will be buying all of the features that poser has whether all of them are wanted or not. whereas with studio you are only adding the plug-ins that you actually want, no purchasing annual upgrades. so who knows what ends up being more expensive in the long run. its going to depend on the individual user. I know a few people who never upgraded poser from poser 4, certainly getting new features with either program is going to be more expensive then sticking with Poser 4(or whichever version you purchase and decide to stick with). Of course with studio you can do the same thing, some plug-ins seem to be added to the free base with major upgrades so if you simply want to wait it is possible that the plug-ins you want will be added and you won't have to pay a thing for them, of course that is up to the creator of the plug-in.