Looking at those parameters, I'm puzzled. My 11.3 often does wide-screen scenes, 64 or 96 pixel-samples, progressive, superfly, usually to suppress low-light fuzziness.

IMHO, you have a lot of 'max' bounces, while the 'vol' bounces seem low. I found that 'vols + buckets' seem to prefer same size, as 2^n, so 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024...

FWIW, in the end, #12's new facilities --Versus removed-- did not impress me enough to buy, and I'm deferring  #13 until eg #.2. (Would be half-price due points stash...)