"Normal Mapping
Poser Pro’s Normal Mapping is a resource-efficient technique to add the appearance of complexity and surface detail to 3D objects. It can transform object surfaces, making them appear more intricate than they actually are, without the added overhead of polygonal detail. This saves designers valuable time and offers increased creative flexibility by allowing faster and more light-weight computation of rendered results."

That's cool. I mean, it's nice to see that SM has finally realized and acknowledged what all the rest of the 3D app world has known for a long time now.

I find it disturbing that 4 out of the top 5 features listed have to do with content and the interface. Not that that surprises me, but I was unrealistically holding onto a belief that there might be a possibility that massive improvements in rendering would be high on the list.

But there's also this:

"OpenGL Preview Improvements
Real-time preview engine improvements in Poser 8 now display lights and their accumulated values more realistically, sorted by intensity. The light properties control allows the user to select each light they wish to illuminate the scene preview. Mip Map support has been enabled for enhanced performance when previewing large textures. Together, these real-time preview engine enhancements let the user view larger textures and offer more complete scene previewing when setting up lights."

That sounds semi-promising at least for making it quicker to set up a new scene.

Overall, meh.
We shall see.