Quote - "The quality of the model means nothing here.  I'm focusing on the features of the engine only."

Agreed, I am  am curious as i still run the ancient poser 6 ,but has not the new subdivision feature in pro largely made  original figure resolution moot?

I Place my lower res figures under a
catmull-clarke hypernurb modifier in C4D and tick it on right before rendering,

Here are a few renders of the vestigial
DAZ Millenium Man 2 (AKA Mike 2)

Yeah I know he has tri's and his joints are terrible by todays standards but this is just a small example of how not so great meshes
can look pretty decent with the right render engine, in this case Maxons "advanced render".

 That's a great shot, Wolf.  Hard to believe it's M2!

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.