Re: combustion 5

One of the many reasons for a delay may be due its integration with 3ds Max (one reason I chose Combustion over After Effects). Right now, the Combustion workspace material doesn't work with the Max 9-64bit version. Perhaps a 64bit version of C5 is in the works?
I would think that to be a logical path, seeing how heavily the program relies on RAM usage. With 32bit you are stuck with a limit of 4GB, period. That get's used up in a hurry, and since it's very common today for Quad or Dual Quad-CPU workstations to be equipped with 8, 16, and 32GB's of RAM, the vastly improved hardware capabilites are severely hamstrung with this software limitation.
If indeed Autodesk makes Combustion 5 into two versions (32/64bit)...like Max and Maya, then it will be worth the wait. If it plays well with Windows Vista, then a user can plug in a USB thumb drive to extend Combustion's RAM capacity (one of Vista's performance enhancements is that it will resort to flash memory before having to swap to a pagefile). When Autodesk came out with Max 9, it not only included a 64 bit version, but also saw a serious boost in overall performance. I would expect a similar result with a 64 bit C5, since they have to recompile the code and would likely choose to streamline common functions/executions in the same process.
My hope is that they also upgrade the Particle system to "Particle Illusion 3" (currently still at PI 2), and perhaps add Trapcode "Particular" (3d particles)and "Shine" (Volumetric Lighting effects) as well.