Your processor is on the low-end of the scale these days. RAM is adeqaute, but more is always better, naturally. The P5 renderer has improved its speed greatly since the initial release, but it still is a tad slow compared to other renderers out there. However, there are still a lot of unknown variables. If you want, you could send me the PZ3 with all the render specs and I'll see how long it takes to render on my machine. I have a P4 1.8GHZ (rapidly becoming obsolete)with a GIG O' RAM. Are you using Firefly, I assume. If so, are you using raytraced shadows, or shadow maps. I know you said you decreased the shadow maps, so you are probably using maps. But that does not definitely mean you are using shadow maps. Also, have you tried it without the displacement maps? This actually has to physically alter the geometry, unlike bump maps, so this COULD add to the time. Someone else with more experience with displacement mapping could probably comment more authoritatively. Well, that's all I can think of right now. A processor upgrade to a modern Pentium4 (ala 2+ GHZ) and more RAM would make a tremendous difference alone. Probably cut render times in half. -Tim [Founding Member of "The 12 Animators"]