[djcapelis]

Whoops... forgot to calc that out. You're right, that is a bit steep... it should take about 4 hours for a complex scene.

As for the addition of a few effects adding seconds per frame? You seriously need to use a better renderer. And for god's sake, don't watch the application, make sure it isn't bothing to send output to an X server (or equivient) to be displayed on the screen and causing you overhead that way.

I found switching to another virtual desktop increased by rendering speeds by about a factor of 5.

I bet that still sounds unreasonably short for a complex animation doesn't it? You should really not use Max's renderer...