It depends on which render engine you are using - Iray does require vertices, including the virtual vertices created by applying SubD, for displacement while 3Delight doesn't. You could try converting your figure to SubD (if it isn't - Edit>Figure>Geometry>Apply SubD from memory) and setting the Render SubD level to 3 or 4 (in the Parameters pane Editor tab, under Mesh Resolution - 3 may be enough for a reasonable level of detail if the model was made to be smooth without SubD)