PROBLEM:
Many people have observed that the RENDER SPEED is affected by the SIZE of the iClone PREVIEW WINDOW. That seems inherently wrong. I am not talking about preview speed.

PRIMARY SUGGESTION:
Add a new option that allows us to DISABLE the Preview Window updates while iClone is doing a Render operation.

If iClone needs to "pretend" it is in full-screen mode, fine. I don't care. Whatever you need to do to the inner workings is fine with me. I just want the option for much faster render times.

ENHANCED SUGGESTION:
Allow options, such as:
1) Preview ON - current behavior
2) Update OFF - requested behavior, above
3) Update every [xx] frames - allow user to specify how often to update the screen - for example update the preview window once every 30 frames if the user wants the comfort of seeing progress - the assumption is there would only be a performance impact on 1/30th of the frames

OBSERVATIONS:
1) The render speed tends to be best when the Preview Window is at a "full size" that matches the output size.
2) It appears as if iClone is rendering twice. Once for the Preview, and once for the Output. That is probably not entirely true, since people have long complained that the Preview Window size would affect the QUALITY of the output (DOF effects, for example) in addition to the render speed. But there is definitely some linkage.

DATA:
Same project, render times range from 5:10 down to 1:57 merely by changing the size of the Preview Window. That is over a 2.5x difference.

Picture 1 - iClone is nearly filling my monitor
Render Time = 5:10

Picture 2 = iClone is "maximized" to fill my monitor, so is slightly larger than in Case 1
Render Time = 3:31

Picture 3 = iClone in "Full Screen" mode, Render menu docked, taking up some Preview Window space
Render Time = 4:28

Picture 4 = iClone in "Full Screen" mode, Render menu "floating," Preview Window is "full-size" (1080 pixels across)
Render Time = 1:57