glad to know it got sorted out.  according to ratscloset, a bunch of items were fixed in sr1.  but apparently bill erred on at least two counts in this thread:

• he didn't read the part in this thread where OP said it was slowing everything else down DURING render (no worries there; let it use 195% of CPU if it can)
• he doesn't know if it's possible to increment or decrement priority on processes like these in sow leopard

I hadda make it bold and underline so it wouldn't be missed this time :lol:
I didn't read some other thread where some other erroneous assumptions may have been made.