Hey, thanks for comments
I dont think Vray is better than Mray even in archviz, lots of people ditched Vray for Mr lately, first because its price, second because the "speed" of Vray get lost since everyone pump the parameters to the roof because we have better and more power machines day by day.
That said, MR is really lovable for Archviz, the render itself requires maybe less parameters to setup and more fun in compositing software, This interior i just did is lighted with
1 Physical Sun + sky
1 portal light on the left
1 portal light behind the back wall with orange color
3 little spotlight with wom archlight
Nothing complicated, i think the trick is to balance the overall lighting of your scene with clay materials first, try to balance Sun + portal lights wich already do a great job, can use GI + FG i use them both, sometimes only FG but depends on how the scene is complicated and how much details i need, i go max to 300 FG rays wich is a lot, i use that for printable stuff or max quality, you can even go higher, specially in outdoor scenes, but i think you can get good results with pretty much the default vaules.
Antialias filter usually mitchell 4, and 0.05 sampling rate for hq images, AA settings 0 and 2, if you get some jagged edges go 1 and 2.
That said, i dont really care about render times anymore, i just want good images, so i render during night and if i can, i pump parameters up, that doesnt mean that you can render the same scene in less time, is just that i have time to do that, Mental Ray requires a bit more tricks and application than Vray, but be warned, if you want to pull Vray to another level, its gonna be the same nightmare as a good level of Mental ray, Vray has a lot of parameters too, and controlling it its not easy.
I hope that helps a bit, tell me if you need any more clarifications
