Is there a way to improve the display of objects in Vue?

I have just made a small test and I now remember what had deterred me from using Vue when I tried versions 1.2 and 3.

Here is an object displayed in Vue smooth (ahem... well) shaded

The same object displayed in Bryce (texture shaded)

Needless to say that I find it way easier to position the camera or objects in Bryce than in Vue.
Same problem for terrains and same difference in wireframe display.

Is there a way to improve the display in Vue and get more or less the same preview as in Bryce? Basically, I would like to increase the resolution of selected elements and show all faces in smooth shaded view.

I am using a GeForce 6600 with 128 Mb of ram

Here is what i have with opengl material display. I use a GeForce 8500GT.

After looking at your screencap, I examined the display parameters and pushed the instant draw to the maximum.
It now looks just like in Bryce, except that movements are a bit slower as Vue does not seem to degrade the display when moving.

Here are my current settings: Interesting.

Next question is: how will Vue behave with a larger number of polygons? I have tried it with a scene containing a large procedural terrain and it gets displayed as a box. Is there a way to improve this? I intended to invest in a 8800 GT, does it make sense?

How much system memory do you have?  If under 2 GB, I would increase that first before getting a new video card.   Procedural terrains increase in polycount depending on how close the camera is.  When Vue switches things to a box, that means your system resources are getting low. 

I have 2 Gb and use Vista 32 bit.
I initially wanted to add 2 Gb more, but read on this forum that it would be of little use with a 32 bit os.
Also, I will probably upgrade my whole machine (CPU, mainboard, Ram, video card) early next year, so buying an extra 2Gb of ram that will be obsolete by then is not an option.

Sounds like a good plan!

Switch off the "enable background draw thread" as a test - this can improve speed! I have it off.

Yeah! I run Vista 64 with 2gigs and have to switch off Draw Thread.

Besides improving speed, what other effects does switching off "enable background draw thread" have?  If there are no plants in your scene is it a good idea to move the plant instant/background draw sliders over to the left?

crickets

Try moving your Instant draw and Background draw sliders way over to the left.

Also, uncheck Maintain instant draw frame rate and Limit OpenGL polygons.

That will help your display.