Still installing DAZ content and getting organized. I decided to do a render with Skye at the beach. I actually did this three times. First time was no special lighting: it took 5 min - 43.34 seconds to render. the second one, this one, Spot light where the sun would be Deep Shadow mapped with some shadow softness: 7 min - 36.78 seconds to render; the final image was raytraced with no shadow softness and it took 10 min-58.35 seconds to render. If I had done this on my old machine, I'd probably would still be rendering, especially with the raytrace. to say that I'm impressed would be putting it mildly. I'm thinking of reloading some of my older images and seeing how long it would take to render them, especially the ones with a lot of lights. Thank you all for your wonderful comments AND for putting up with my excitement regarding my new computer. Mike I was thinking of tagging this for violence, but the ball hasn't hit Skye, yet, even though it appears that she is oblvious to the fact that she is going to get it in the face. PS I also know about the planes in the sand. these are only test images and not to be considered as finished work more like WIPs