There is no question that the detail of SC is supreme, but rendering has been spotty. And all one has to do is go to the RSI forums to find rendering problems: from graphics and grates on floors, asteroids not appearing until near, helmet disappearing and reappearing (is this the real reason they were taken out?), pumps looking like spaghetti inside housing, missing turrets in Arena Commander and the list goes on. That is not to say these problems can't be corrected but lets get real. Elite has done a fantastic job and as far as I am concerned the ball is now in SC's court. Yes they are different games but since the basic premise of the game is space, planets and spaceships, there will be comparisons. And rightly so. Personally I hope Mr. Roberts comes through, especially since I have put more money into SC than I care to admit. But sitting back and expecting the same kind of detail in the end product isn't reasonable, especially after optimization. I just hope a lot of people don't throw a galactic fit when assets don't appear as they are now - personally I would much rather bump up renders, even at the cost of lowering quality. Computers can only do so much, presently; if they could render in such great detail during gameplay in such immense scale then I doubt we would even be having this conversation. Sacrifices have to be made, even for those with super computers.