Will the render speed be any better than the 4.0 version? Or should we expect the same painful speed in this version as well?

Remember Maul, Bryce is a TRUE Raytracing application, unlike other 3D apps that use hybrid render engines to render specific parts of an image such as shadows, lights, volumetrics etc. Bryce renders all those elements that's why it seems so slow.

Personally, I'm delighted that the render engine does seem to catch it all. I've used demos of terragen, vue, etc. All I find of value in those products is the little oddities on modeling. I use Bryce for the render engine every time and have no plans on buying any other render engine. (though I do want a few other modelers since Bryce has not oriented towards that... until B5 maybe).

Anyone have any idea when Bryce 5 will be available? I'm a diehard Bryce 4 fan but have a list of things I'm hoping they'll address in the next upgrade. Speed is one of them, but I agree...no other program renders with the efficient totality that Bryce does.

Good news!! there are signifigant Speed improvements in the render engine of Bryce 5 Using the standard "Normal antialias" render option and "Volumetric atmosphere renders" Bad News!!: the new Render features that make this new version so appealing ie.Soft shadows, Depth of field, blurry reflections etc . are the new CPU killers that will give complex Scenes unmanagable render times( days!!) on a single machine. however for those who own multiple machines you can farm these long renders out Using "Bryce Client"