lol you all are bitchin' about 2 minute waits? lol I called..I got a message that said "you have called during our regular staff meeting, please call back in an hour" ...I called back..same message.. I called back..same message 4 hours later, I called and actually got a "wait til next available rep" message... 20 minute later I got a new serial number lol..so rem. btw, the reason Bryce5 has metaballs is that it was necessary for the engineers to make trees. The trees are actually metaballs set to a path. They dont work the same, but thats what they are. To my understanding, originally, they werent gonna make them a menu item. I guess it was a "I want them" thing that got them there. and yes, on windows machines, bryce 5 renders from 115% - 7% slower. I have been working on "why". On my machine, the original file renders ~14% slower. I now have it to ~4%. This will be in the review I do shortly. To get the faster render times means doing things you SHOULD NOT have to do...but with the same settings on B4, you get no real difference (I tried it)..so it must do with "background" programming (just a guess) I am happy overall with B5, but like anything...it could be better (just dont say that to your wife!..lol) later BT