Hi aLeXXtoR,
The perpetual license is composed by Standalone and 1x plugin license.
The Annual Extension offers the possibility to use any kind of Octane DCC plugins (including C4D, OctaneX, and EmberGen beta), and also the RNDR/ORC Octane Render Cloud subscription (render credits need to be purchased separately).
So:
1. When the Annual Extension will be expired, you’ll go back to Standalone and 1x plugin.
2. Yes, you need to purchase another Annual Extension, if you want new versions, and all the advantages of the Annual Extension.
3. Yes, but technically there is a week of grace period , when a subscription end, and we should have to talk about v2021/2022, since the year is going to finish soon
4. When a new version is presented, it is in XB stage for some versions, then RC state, until the final stable release. This takes time, and during that time the current stable version is constantly updated.
Technically v4 was based on CUDA 10 (Pascal), then we had v2018 on CUDA 10.1 (Volta), then 2019 on CUDA 10.2 (Turing), and now 2020 on CUDA 11 (Ampere).
Things are evolving, and Nvidia has removed the Fermi GPUs support with CUDA 10.2, and now the support to Kepler GPUs (6XX/7XX) in CUDA 11.
Next time will be the time for Maxwell GPUs (9XX), and so on.
And here is what happen with Insydium X-Particles/Cycle in C4D:
If you want to use them in C4D R23, you need to upgrade to the latest version, and take look at what happen if your maintenance expires:
https://insydium.ltd/products/maintenance/Translating this to octane licenses, v4 users should have to purchase a full new licenses, or take a subscription, since 24 moths are already gone
With OctaneRender you can still upgrade your perpetual licenses even from v1, v2, or v3 (v3 from v4 upgrade is still free), that’s it.
ciao Beppe