@ Steve K.

I agree with you that Daz doesn't spend much money on Carrara. The 8.5.1.19 is proof positive of a 'release' done on a shoestring budget.

But Daz did invest some money on Carrara not long ago, when they spend months to implement the fast mipmapping filtering mode. To do this they must have used a well-paid experienced developer, because it's too complex for a summer-intern.

I suspect that fast mipmapping filtering mode was implemented to speed-up Carrara's native renderer to handle Genesis's high resolution textures.

If indeed I am correct, and fast mipmapping was done to speed-up the native renderer, then I call it 'The Engineering Blunder Of The Decade', because fast mipmapping is a technology of the 1990's not 21st century.

Daz developers beautifully missed the cutting-edge Embree technology, that everybody is using today, and opted instead for an obsolete technology of the 1990's. The infuriating point is that the cost of implementing Embree in Carrara wouldn't have been much more than what they spent on fast mipmapping.