I and my associate have just performed a rendering test of Bryce 4 and Bryce 5 using the scene shown. All settings were kept identical and both renderings had an output size of 540 x 360 pixels with normal anti-aliasing. We used a 500 Mhz AMD K6-2 pc under windows 98. The render times were: 14 minutes 56 seconds in Bryce 4.1, 17 minutes 28 seconds in Bryce 5.01.

conclusion: I have never before seen a newer version of a graphics program actually get slower. I also felt much sadness.

I'd like to see both images, side by side, to see if there are any subtle differences that can be seen in the final products of each. An increase in render time by almost one quarter is a little disheartening. It would seem that without any of the new bells and whistles, there should have been no time difference if it wasn't in Bryce 5's favor.

Yeah...we all went through this when B5 first came out. B5 is, on average 5%-20% slower than B4 (depending on pc), it is all unfortunate. I had a friend do the same test with his B5 being slower by 9%, compared to yours being 17% slower. There is really no visual difference in a B4 Vs. B5 render, none that can be spotted with the naked eye, anyways. All we can do is hope that one day Corel can figure out an update that will help this. At the very least, identical renders should be way closer in time. Agent Smith

I did not detect any visual difference between B4 and B5, only the render time.

I hate to be the fly in the ointment...but, my G4 450 renders in Bryce5 faster than it does in Bryce4. Not by much, but enough to show up in a quick test I just did. The proof is in the pudding, 8 minutes 30 seconds in B5 and 8 minutes 39 seconds in B4. I believe part of the upgrade from B4 to B5 was that it took better advantage of the Altivec core in the G4 processor. Looks like it worked out better for Mac users than it did for PC users...hmmm good reason to switch, hehe. ;-)

very interesting indeed. Maybe someone may try this test on an athlon XP or P4.

All rendering works much better with XP Pro. Upgraded from Win98 for about 4 months ago and its a BIG difference.

My G4 450MP renders about twice as fast in Bryce4. Even when I am running Bryce4 in the Classic Layer it's still faster. I don't think Bryce supports AltiVec. Alleycat, are you running Bryce5 in OS9 or X?

johnpenn, I'm running OS9.2 and I'm test rendering with Bryce5.1 and Bryce4.1. So everything is upgraded to the latest version except the OS. Have you done a side by side like the one I did? I have a hard time believing that B4 would be so much faster with the same settings. I got the results I got and I repeated it a few times to be sure. Have you updated to Bryce5.1?

Yup. Bryce 5.1 But to be fair, X is a drag on my machine. It's great for listening to music, surfing the web, and light duty word processing, but OS X brings my machine to a crawl when graphics work is involved. I'll try to render with B5 while booted into OS9.2. That might speed me right up. I hope it does, because I've all but abandoned B5 because it's so slow, but maybe OS9 will do it. I'll let you know.

Well, I just made a similar scene to the test scene shown above, and B5 was faster than B4 by a few seconds in OS9. And, it was faster by a few more seconds on OS X. Maybe I'm imagining the slowness... I guess my scenes are just getting more complex to render. Unless there are certain elements/textures/maps that drag down B5. But, the render tests are proof for me. It's mysterious, but I can't complain.

as the thing about bryce rendering better in xppro over 98.. xp is based off the nt kernel which handles resources alot better than 98 could ever dream.. just a thought