1. They are desktop PCs but not used for any purpose other than rendering, while rendering. I will try with optimizing for background services and turning off sidebar cpu utilization monitoring  screen saver etc.
   2:  I'll drop the 32s and try again. 1 can be upgraded to 64bit, 1 can't,
2. How big in Meg? do you mean the saved  .vue is about 100mb, is that the question.
   5.  I'll check the cables, I think they are cat5e. The dell switch has good management. but I haven't tried tweeking it, it was just put in to share these pcs.

The scene is Poser7 and Vue  ecosystem plus imported objects global ambience.

I pushed the quality up to broadcast 900 frames 800x600. I really just use final but i wanted a longer render time to see the difference between the 2 methods better.
thanks