Temporary freeze when using directx shaders

McGreed

I have a problem when I'm using directx shaders like 3Point and Xoliul's shader, that everytime I introduce them into a scene for the first time in my 3ds max session, the program stalls for a long while before either adding the shader or loading the scene the shader is in. If I have already used the shader in the current session, loading scenes or adding more doesn't take a long time.

Any idea why that is?

I'm using 3DS Max 2009 and got a ATI Radion HD 4800 (which I'm inclined to believe is part of the problem, since I can't use real time shadows with it)

Farfarer

I know Max9 had a major issue with unresponsiveness when using DX shaders, especially when undoing an action. I think that problem continued for a few versions - not sure if it affects 2009.

Have you got Max 8 or 2001 to test the same issue with? That didn't suffer from the same problem in my experience.

McGreed

I got Max 9 and just did a test, created a scene in max 9 with a box with a 3point shader on, saved it and then closed and opened max 9 again and loaded the scene, no problems. But when I loaded the scene in max 2009, it took a while. Seem 2009 has a bit of a problem there for me. Hm.

Buzzy

DirectX + Max9 + undo = death

A game I worked on a few years ago (using Max9) that had very large, complex character files. Someone, somewhere along the line enabled hardware shading on a couple of materials. It took us forever to figure out why undo was so slow. We assumed the scenes were just too big. And once the files got big enough, ctrl-z just became a hotkey to instantly close Max. Turns out it was DirectX.

Having the material editor open when you load a file can cause a lot of slowdown too. Max has to load and process all of the materials AND render the material thumbnails. This is especially bad with Mental Ray and large scenes with complex materials. Not sure if it effects DirectX though... might worth a test.