Had a look at this from the point of redraw time, results were not expected with there being a big overhead with the figure, maybe a problem with the test.

##Method

Load scene (basic P11 + BBs environment sphere)
Load V4.2 figure and ran timer
Export to obj, delete v4.2 figure and import obj
Re-ran test

##Results

#Victoria as a Figure
Average redraw time with Parallel Compute Actors Off = 0.051s
Average redraw time with Parallel Compute Actors Enabled = 0.039s
Improvement with Parallel Compute Actors enabled = 23.1%

#Victoria as an Object
Average redraw time with Parallel Compute Actors Off = 0.015s
Average redraw time with Parallel Compute Actors Enabled = 0.028s
Improvement with Parallel Compute Actors enabled = -84.9%

##Code

import time
import poser

scene = poser.Scene()

poser.EnableParallelComputeActors(0)
start = time.clock()
for x in xrange(1, 11):
scene.DrawAll()

AvgRedrawTimeNoParallel = (time.clock() - start)/10

poser.EnableParallelComputeActors(1)
start = time.clock()
for x in xrange(1, 11):
scene.DrawAll()

AvgRedrawTimeParallel = (time.clock() - start)/10

print "Average redraw time with Parallel Compute Actors Off = {:0.3f}s".format(AvgRedrawTimeNoParallel)
print "Average redraw time with Parallel Compute Actors Enabled = {:0.3f}s".format(AvgRedrawTimeParallel)
print "Improvement with Parallel Compute Actors enabled = {:0.1f}%".format(100*(AvgRedrawTimeNoParallel-AvgRedrawTimeParallel)/AvgRedrawTimeNoParallel)