Methinks you haven't figured out the render settings yet. And if Bryce 5 really 'locked up all the time' then you have a problem on your machine. I have yet so see Bryce 5 lock up. The only time it may SEEM to lock up is in the treelab with some extreme settings. Just hold the ESC key and wait a little bit and it will dump you back to your wireframe. Spit