Good point, vilters.  512 is simply the default, and I have not had need for higher texture resolution in preview.  My reason for preferring OpenGL & hardware shading is to be able to see how tiled materials fit the model (in order to get the Uscale and Vscale and their offsets adjusted), and to see adjustments to procedural materials (changes in scale, frequency, phase).

For example, I can adjust the Uscale and Vscale of the image map node for the roof shingles, and I see immediate feedback of just how many shingles will be tiled on the roof, and whether the height/width ratio of the shingles is correct.  Having really sharp texture detail in the preview isn't important to me, I just want to be able to see that the UV scales and offsets place the tiles where I want them.  This is a great help while working up materials on a new model.

If one were doing a quickie animation rendered in preview, then I would indeed increase the texture resolution.

By the way, Michael, in my experience Poser tends to default to OpenGL and hardware shading if the machine has a Quadro.  Whereas with the GeForce series mine all defaulted to no hardware shading, even though the cards were capable of it.  I had to manually adjust the preview render settings for GeForce cards.

For the benefit of all folks reading, I also want to point out that OpenGL with hardware shading consumes more system resources, so you may need to use fast tracking if camera movement is too sluggish.  Else, you could change the preview render settings back to no hardware shading once you have gotten your materials worked up.

Also, I want to stress that this OpenGL/hardware shading issue only affects the preview render;  it does not affect the final Firefly render.

Poser 12, in feet.  

OSes:  Win7Prox64, Win7Ultx64

Silo Pro 2.5.6 64bit, Vue Infinite 2014.7, Genetica 4.0 Studio, UV Mapper Pro, UV Layout Pro, PhotoImpact X3, GIF Animator 5