Hi Peter Luttmer, The rendering time depends of the complexity of the design. There are several resources to help - Work in 2D and go to 3D only when necessary - During the work time, use the clear view rendering and switch to final quality only at the end or to apply textures - Go to liveview--> In the liveview windows--> click on the "pencil icon"(last icon of the liveview menu)--> You can show / hide different elements in liveveview (landscape, roofs, etc)--> See attached--> hiding the landscape elements (plants, topo etc) or the 3D objects while you are working will save you a lot of time Now regarding your computer and VC, some notes I am an ATI card user since 2003. I have 2 cards, one in my main computer and other in my laptop I have a third computer with the same configuration of the main, but with Nvidia VC The difference between ATI and Nvidia is incredible. Not only Punch runs with full accelerations, but the ATI rendering results are amazing However, in my experience, it is not only the ATI VC, the ATI Catalyst drive also makes the difference. The fact is that, the VC of my laptop is not Catalyst enable (as most of the ATI VC for laptops), and I feel differences (for some complicated rendering in my laptop I must go down with the accelerations, for example) I don't see these issues with my main VC--> ATI Radeon Catalyst enable As stated, the driver of the ATI Radeon series (Catalyst) is different from the driver of the Fire GL series (Hydavision), and believe or not, this makes a difference. In addition, if you have Vista, I'd suggest that you check the compatibility between ATI FireGL V3350 and other series and Vista (HP sells this VC to be used just with XP) Also, check the brand of your computer--> several users reported their MDG computers (Canadian) with defective pieces, specially VC Patricia

I have come to the conclusion that the product is not compatible with Vista. At least it is not compatible with Vista's use of shared memory when the video chips are on the mother board as they are on a laptop. The specs call for 32 megs of video memory and I have ten times that. I don't think I can do anything else to this laptop to make it run faster that is economically feasible. My "plan" has one floor, eight rooms, 16 pieces of furniture and it is painted. It has no roof, no trim, no landscaping, no little decorations. It takes five minutes to render in 3D. If I try to fly around the rendered plan in the little helicopter it takes about 15 seconds for each jerky (about 2 degrees) little move. Thanks again for your help, particularily Patricia who was emailing me about other problems I was having. Peter

I am trying to design a house in the shape of an equal sided cross with diagonal walls replacing the inner corners. When trying to connect a diagonal with the one opposite and parallel to it and form a rectangle inside the cross at a 45 degree orientation to the cross legs, the end points will not match up. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the reply Patricia. I realize I did not make myself clear. I left out the word "squarely". If you can draw the design as I described,(ten minutes) you will note that the interior rectangle is actually a parallelogram with the sides not perpendicular. I had a thought today- when you print the drawing "to fit the page" you may be elongating the drawing in one direction. I redrew the design with the same parallelogram outcome but when printed the angles were 90degrees! Keep thinking, I appreciate you very much.

If you could picture a cross (equally dimensioned), Each leg being 20' at the end and 25' on each side you would have the basic structure. Now reduce each side to 15' instead of 25' and connect the reduced sides with a 45degree wall that is 14-2" you would have the design in question.If your design shows everything perpendicular please let me know. It means my computer is at fault