I used it all day yesterday and still managed to crash it a couple of times. However, the memory usage does seem to have been reduced quite a bit and unless you start hurling poser or large xfrog objects into your scene it shouldn't get anywhere near an OOM error. The scene I managed to crash yesterday had not just a large 3DS file imorted but also around 40 XFrog plants and trees and with the size of some of those (over 30MB) its hardly surprising I ran out of memory. In contrast I completed another scene last night with the same 3DS file included, a 2048x2048 terrain and over 700 Vue trees and the memory usage remained below 500MB which seems pretty good to me.

The lighting improvements are wonderful, I only ever use global illumination and up now, the results are so much more realistic. As for the terrains, well the procedural terrains allow you to scale right out to the horizon without losing most of the detail and this also leads to a much more realistic scene. All in all I love Vue 5 and can't wait for the pro version :-)

no, the only thing you can export is the terrain and thats at low resolution (65k vertices)

good summary :-) Although Windows reports 50/50 for the two virtual processors its not an equal split. Hyperthreading is basically just using the wasted cycles caused by the overly long pipeline of the P4 (and even more for the newer Prescotts) and is more like 20~30%. So on a dual Xeon Vue 5 would still get at least 60% of the available CPU power and the remaining cycles would be used by the system and any other programs you have running, giving you a much more responsive PC. Athlon 64s (or Athlons) don't need hyperthreading as they have much shorter and more efficient pipelines so there would be very little to gain.

No, an Athlon 64 will use the full CPU power and opening two instances of Vue would more than double the render time, thats if it finished at all due to running out of memory. The use of two threads means more to P4 users as it enables the CPU to be used to the max, ie. normal CPU usage + hyperthreading (basically taking up the slack). Athlon 64s run flat out anyway so it makes far less difference.

from what I gather its not fully functional, its limited to 640x480 and most of the textures and plants are disabled (so I've been told by someone who's trying it now)

I just got it via my account at eon, once in there you just click on updates and they don't ask for any serials, you just download the file. As for the HyperVue question I asked, the answer is that it only works if you have Mover. I was hoping they were giving us a pro feature for nothing, too much to ask maybe but they could have been a lot clearer in their list :-D

I see that the blurb mentions that HyperVue network rendering is included but after installing the update I can find no changes to Vue that will make any use of it. If it is indeed included, how can I get it working?

The Renderosity admins set the TOS and its the job of the moderators to enforce it in as friendly and patient a manner as possible. After reading the TOS and some of the posts I think Agiel is doing just that. The forum is not a place for freedom of speech unless the Admins decide to change the TOS and frankly I can't see that happening, nor do I want them to. Its also not a requirement that the moderator be the premium expert on the forum topic, the provision of informed answers to any technical questions posed is that of the members and nobody else. My personal opinion is that the forum is well run and a change of moderator is neither needed or wanted by the vast majority of the members - EOS! ;-)

the difference is astonishing and happily my copy of Vue 5 is arriving later today :-)