I've recently seen some very appealing images rendered with this, it may be worth a look? It's not expensive either. It was very easy to use and output was acceptable for the time. Podium: I haven't used (or updated) it in years. When rendering I seldom bump up more than double the resolution as you typically don't have the black SU edges to deal with. When doing renders I do the same thing, however you need to take more care as renders can take muuuuuch longer when you bump up the resolution. This works well when exporting straight from SU as the time difference in exporting is negligible. The way I work is to double (or quadruple) the export resolution to what I intend in using at the end, that way when I resize the image it becomes crisper (w.r.t. Trust me - don't know how I am going to survive with SU.
Although I hate owing money, so I should not talk as I pay both of those in full for the year. Would be nice too if they had a true subscription service like Photoshop or Illustrator, actually Adobe, which takes the sting out. Maybe I can ask for donations for Mother's Day or something and put those in the SU piggy bank. I really do get that, and we all have to live and pay our bills, but we can each only do what we can do. I totally understand that SU is a business, not a charitable organisation. The rest of the time it's "rake and scrape".
My working season is really only from September to maybe February if I am lucky. It would not be fair to ask my employer (who happens to be my nephew) to pay for SU as he already does way too much for me as it is. I can go months without doing anything in the event off-season which is historically the summer, and then anything I do is definitely just hobby stuff. I only work part time, and more like party time. The thing is Dave, it's a little more complicated than that.