I've read this before, it's very similar to a review in one of the magazines, I'm pretty sure it's the same as the guy did who wrote on of the "Poser 8 how to books". If you read through it, you get the impression it's a bit (perhaps a lot) biased..... it also contains some errors.

Quote - Now lets talk about the improved Firefly renderer that ships with Poser 8. In my preliminary tests, the improved Firefly produced superior results even at low settings that in older versions would always produce plenty of rendering artifacts in your final renders. With Poser 7, I always had to disable raytracing for any materials that contained transparencies because the render time would be too long, and the final render would be ruined with a lot of "dirty" artifacts.

The good news is that the new Firefly no longer seems to be affected by raytracing over transparencies, and the amount of "dirty" artifacts was greatly reduced. Render times also seem faster even with raytraced shadows over transparency, which is something that plagued Poser since version 6. Hats off to Smith Micro again for solving yet another very old Poser problem!

We all know that the renders compared to P7 or Poser Pro aren't superior at all and the artifacts are still there, even confirmed by SM tech support.

Secondly, Firefly is still very much affected by raytracing over transparencies,confirmed by various users and again by SM tech support.

Quote - OpenGL support now FINALLY works! I have been using Poser since the very first version and OpenGL hardware acceleration never actually worked, even on the quite overpriced Poser 7 Pro. But now it works, and you have the option to manually select which lights to include on the previews. Frankly, I have never seen Poser previews this fast and responsive before. Hats off to Smith Micro for this little miracle

OpenGL works better, but it still doesn't work as it should and could. My Poser Pro preview is very fast and responsive, until you start crowding the scene more and more and then things start to slow down. That's the way it was and that's still the way it is. No miracle has happened there at all. The preview looks a bit better (but not even as good as on most other 3D apps I have that use OpenGL) and it's still sluggish...... for quite a number of people.

Quote - Hope this helps you deciding if you want to upgrade or not, or even switch to DS3A (DAZ Studio 3 Advanced). I didn't buy or intend to buy DS3A, but I did buy some it's major plugins from DAZ3D, and they clearly lack functionality. My Poser 8 upgrade costs the same thing but at least the included features work - that is the least I expect from something you have paid for.''

I noted the date on this review...... Wed Aug 5, 2009.... that's pre SR1. By then it was confirmed that a number of included features did not work, so I do find this comment quite amusing.

It's an extensive review, containing some excellent points, but also painting a picture that isn't totally accurate.

It also must be stated that the writter never used DS3 at all, not only didn't he use D/S 3A as he writes, but he didn't use the regular DS3 as well.

Somehow this person has links with Smith Micro, contrary to his claims about that. Poser 8 was released on August 4th and less then 24 hours later this very extensive review was released....... pretty much impossible to make the claims he did, within 24 hours of release.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk