The preview surface in this scene is subdivided three times to create 2.8M triangles. The subdivision is done at scene load time currently, so it does take rather a lot of RAM.
I'll look into dynamic subdivision later, but this serves as a good benchmark for performance.
The map 'spherebump.jpg' is used as a displacement map here.
The 'ripples' on the surface are due to incorrect UV generation I think, as opposed to triangle resolution limitations.
Also there's the rather glaring issue of discontinuities at creased edges in the surface
