I am working only with bump maps, and procedural bump. I can't answer your question, I don't have the knowledge and experience with those other programs, and exactly zero with normal maps!

This info from ironsoul is encouraging me to stay on my path with Firefly and bump/displacement:

"For Firefly the level of detail may be dependent on the shading rate as textures are averaged across a micro-polygon. Try reducing the shade rate if the bump/NM looks lower res than expected. Bump and Normal maps work on both diffuse and specular components of light unlike specular maps. Displacement maps work by modifying the base mesh. Firefly breaks up the base mesh into micro-polygons before applying the displacement map so produce much finer details than Superfly."

Frankly, there's too much trial and error with procedural. I spent enough time attempting to tweak the settings to know it is the road to frustration for me. So I'm sticking with Firefly renders with GI and tweaking the settings for SSS, Specular, and the bump maps that came with the set.

More importantly, the map-set I'm working with is spectacular. Whatever genius created it for DAZ, I wish I could find more like it. The camera used must have been powerful. What's odd is that the only one of the four "V4 Elite Maps" that are this fine is the "Lana." The others all have issues.

::::: Opera :::::