Before WinXP was available, I ran a formal performance test comparing OS performance. The test was done on one dual-CPU computer (P3-800(?),512Mb ram) booting to Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT4 and Win2K. The task was to solve a large matrix with a mixed integer optimizer. This was not a rendering job...but it was a large, CPU-intensive "batch job" doing floating point calcs. The result? With one CPU removed, the OS made no difference (within 1%)! After plugging in the second CPU (not running parallel), NT and 2000 performance gained 10%...probably due to offloading OS tasks. Switching the optimizer to parallel mode for NT and 2000 nearly doubled the performance. Performance continued to gain when using CPU's available on the LAN. They tell me the new Windows versions are faster, but not on the number-crunching jobs we see. With luck, I'll find time to run an XP test in the future. The only other thing we have found is that Win95 and Win98 leak memory. So they must be rebooted daily...if they don't crash first. Also, we found Win2000Server to be more stable than WinNTServer. I'd like to add a Linux box to my home LAN and render my Rhino and Bryce models on it. Anyone tried this? Is there any reasonable software for Linux? How about parallel rendering across a LAN using mixed OS's (Win, Linux)? Zarth