I think we're at crossed wires a little.

My first (present) plan of attack is to use the 5 bit internal DAC to get an anlogue output... (that's what my screenscrape was earlier - using the PIC's internal DAC to get a rough analogue output) clearly 32 steps is insufficent for sine waves, so I was trying to add an extra 2 bits by creatively using the PIC Fixed voltage reference (the PIC FVR output canfeed the DAC and the voltagae output can be set to 1.024V, 2.048V or 4.096V) - I might not be grasping a fundamental issue here, so I need to ponder this one until I have an "Oops, that was an embarrassing idea" moment!

If the above comes to nothing then I'll relent & use HPWM and a filter (I only had a brief go at this a year or so ago & didn't actually test how much the reactance of the cap in such an arrangement impacts the amplitude...over the range I'm interested (0-5khz) it mght not be that much. I'm of the opinion that I'll end up having to go this way...then all I have to crack is the accumulator problem (need more than 16 bits) & the little bit of floating point (to get the accumulator value needed for the required frequency)

Clearly if I end up going the R2R route, then I'll need to bring a 14 pin PIC into service (likely to be a 16f1824)