Well a single (joined group) grass model with up to a 1000 polys shouldn't be a bad thing. The trouble is making it line to the terrain. You can place the grass in 3dsmax(blender, ect) , right on the terrain in place, then group them into one model.(Of course delete the terrain before exporting the grass model and bring each on it's own to WED/MED/Engine).

I'm currently testing functions to just reshape the grass model to the terrain at level-load(run-time). That way I won't need special models for each area/level and random levels can us grass. Also to save time and energy I've hacked up the ent_seed() function and made a my own mod version for placing this stuff. )(ent_seed() in includes/level.c).

BTW you 2 guys should compare(PM) the specs on your test machines.My old one couldn't render 10% of the grass my current one can. But it was a simple student laptop.

I'll share some results if I get any with y'all.