i discovered you can easily make decent fire in cycles with very very low samples! heres a render showing two different flames:
heres the nodes for the red one:
and the blue one:
so basically, i took a cylinder, scaled+loop-cutted it into the flame shape, 3x subsurfed it, and displaced it along the Z with a cloud/noise texture, and 1x subsurfed it again.
heres the blend: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/28471
comments, cirts, tips, everything appreciated!