Quote - > Quote - dont be mad but it pisses me off that you posted a poser 7 render for comparison and you didnt use AO. AO

I think you've misunderstood something, somewhere. I didn't detail my P7 render settings, so unless you can read my mind you don't know whether I used AO or not.

To put you out of your misery, the P7 render uses 1 infinite light with AO and 1 IBL without, which may sound a bit weird, but it works for me.

For the P8 render the infinite light was left as is (i.e. with AO still on) but I turned off the IBL

you are aware that this is not how this works right?

if you have AO on the infinite light and use an IBL then the IBL will destroy everything. you need to have AO on the materials or on the IBL to make the it darker in the  ambient part.

so no offense but hte point of AO is to get soft ambient shadows when things are close.and in the shadow parts where its flat from teh IBL. and you dont have them because you use AO on the infinite light.
what i am saying is that you didnt use it right. so i still stand by my words that you made a bad example when you compared GI to the oldschool IBL.