Quite a lot on the subject has indeed been said in the past, and quite a number of people are able (or unable) to produce good/poor/no results from Poser5. Seemingly there are instances where other software/hardware combinations - most of which are not clearly denoted even now - will tend to paly nicely with P5 or poorly. Some CD-writing software, for example, apparently affects Poser - though grief knows why . The beta-2 forum is full of problems with the beta of sr-2, and suggested workaround for many (but certainly not all) of those issues. It is known to be impossible to pick up Poser5 (a far more powerful application in many ways) and treat it just liek Poser4 and get the same or better results. The renderer, for example, even when bugs are fixed will require more effort to set up "correctly" for many possible scenes than the P4 renderer - simply because there's so many more options. As to the quality of the program as released - well, it's poo isn't it? It's got major and minor flaws galore (SR-1 addressed something like 85 "issues", disregarding the "content" update!!!). Who is responsible for it being poo on release? why - controversially - I'd say that was us. . What do I mean? I mean that 2back in the good old days" (a time that never was) programs were bought that, in the main, worked. They were released largely when the programmers thought they were ready, and the price tag attached to the software was HUGE! And practically no competition. As competition has increased, the cost of software has been driven down - just like the cost of hardware. But, in a stampede of saving money over getting quality, we put up with it. Pentium processors with math bugs? We don't return the computer, we wait for Windows to include a math-bug patch when it recognises that we've got a buggy CPU. Windows crashes frequently? We reboot. This hasn't gone unnoticed. as the initially HUGE profit margin on software (and hardware) gets squeezed, the development cycle is sped up to maintain as high a profit as possible. Any developer who hangs back trying for quality over speed gets left behind in the marketplace, and ends up down the drain (generally). A vicous circle where products come out faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper. Are they also going to be better and better programs? Well... Each tiem there's something bad about a program or major component (like CPU's which identify themselves to Intel) there's an outcry - but unless it's sustained and serious then nothing very much will change - and many of US "rely" on the latest software in order for our own companies to be "competitive"... a vicous circle of downward spiralling quality where WE are actually thr driving cause. If we stop buying poor goods then vendors wil lstop making poor goods - they can't afford to build stuff "on the cheap" if no-one buys it. I'm glad you made the (extremely sensible) decision of finishing your project before buying an upgrade to Poser 5 - a logical and reasonable chocie if ever there was one. Far too many people - people that I suspect get patches to windows and Internet Explorer on a regular basis, despite both products having been released eons ago - jumped in head first without checking the waters and expected Poser 5 to run smoothly - for some reason which I have yet to fathom (and yes, windows HAS been released with "critical" will-not-run-at-all issues with certain CPU's in the past). In many cases Poser 5 hasn't behaved terribly well (in some cases it's been just awful!) but the way the computer industry has been going downhill in the last 20 years or so it's not that much of a surprise really. Irritating, but to be expected :( If it's not up to scratch, talk to CL about returning it for refund. The licenses on these things often seem more binding than they are (local law and trading standards may over-rule the license - and this has been the case more often that you'd imagine). I'm not even trying to return mine because, like many people, I WANT that functionality - and we're (CL and the SR-2 open beta-testers) are doing our best to root out the issues and splat them. I'm doing it for my benefit, but if other users benefit from the resulting fixes then so much the better. If CL refuse and your local laws will not allow forcing them to refund, then start talking to the media, stir things up - get newspapers involved, whatever - or join the SR-2 beta test and add your bug reports (you just MIGHT help identify the source of problems which affect you, and get fixes written sooner rather than later). As for the next Poser, the next Windows, the next...anything which requires significant development work - expect it to have bugs. Because it will do. The larger the product, the more problems there wil lbe - possibly on an exponential basis. Verson .00 of any significant program has bugs - always has. or years it seemed CorelDraw! tensded to be stable (thanks to bug patches) some 6 to 9 months after release (yes, there WAS a "final" retail release which tended to corrupt documents when it saved them - a "critical error", which didn't get fixed for several months IIRC). grief, what a rambling post with too many points (some seemingly conflicting). but my main one remains the same - WE are doing this to ourselves. In this instance CL are merely helping us to send ourselves mad, but all major (and most minor) software vendors 2help" us along the same path. Cheers, Cliff Bowman