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Max 2010 - Performance

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  • rv_el
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    rv_el polycounter lvl 18
    holy shit i think i just figured something out... The Alt Button all by itself highlights the fuckign Edit menu up top!

    So you hit alt, it moves function to the Edit menu and then you have trouble zooming etc.. so you have to click back to viewport to get it back.

    *shrug* i guess its alwasy been there!?



    It seems to do this witht he Modify panel more. Like i said earlier where you do something in the mod panel, then pan around in the viewport and then try to zoom, and it doesn't work. clicking is the sure fire way to get it to go. it doesn't always want to work. testing in 2009 it looks like it doesn't do it.

    -Select sub object vert
    -mouse wheel (or pan i think does it too) up and down on modify panel (like if your going down to edit smoothing groups or ids)
    -alt+middle mouse in viewport (then let off alt)
    -try to zoom in and out

    2009 seems to always zoom, 2010 sometimes scrolls the mod panel instead. I might get used to the quirk though.. ugh.. just feels so stiff in the viewport in general!
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    With my quadro, and maxtreme drivers, the perfomance in viewports is the same as with max 2008/2009. Service pack didn't help LOL

    But... the scanline renderer is slower as hell. It renders the images in almost the double of time.
  • rv_el
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    rv_el polycounter lvl 18
    Been doing a few tests back and forth. Max 2010 actually handles things super swift on very high tri counts so long as your already spinning around. Its feathering the alt button etc.. that causes issues.



    I could be wrong but i feel like everybody is telling Autodesk they are having "performance" issues and its like some Rally Race car driver going to a Drag Car mechanic and saying the car he's been modding and building for him has poor "performance" so the mechanic keeps boring the engine and throwing turbo and everything at it when what the guy needs is some suspension and different tires.

    I feel like 2010 is even worse with the alt+middle thing, and seems to have issues switching gears between panning, zooming, and rotating around in the viewport.. may be its just me. I never (2009 or 2010) understand exactly why alt+whatever is much slower(less responsive actually) than clicking on the buttons down at the bottom right (orbit / pan etc..)


    Also it seems to be better when i exported something as an FBX and brought it back in to a fresh start of 2010. So i'm not taking a 2009 file and working on it in 2010 (like i have been)....
    I don't know what thats about. But it seemed to help quite a bit!
  • roB0T
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    renderhjs wrote: »
    some of the annoying things in pictures:

    like the xth time today:
    max2010crashing.gif
    because rendering fails, and then sometimes not


    i cant render model with 4mil polygons lol. i must render some parts separately and put them in photoshop together :poly118:

    but thats ok the really annoying thing is i cant turn addaptive degradation on. u know like some time ago in max9,if u had over 5 mil tris in your viewport u just press the letter O and everything is fine. but its not working, i dunno why :(

    1258095933.jpg


    and the config menu is different tooo...

    1258079170.jpg
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    after reading this thread i don think i want to switch to max 2010
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    rv_el wrote: »
    I feel like 2010 is even worse with the alt+middle thing, and seems to have issues switching gears between panning, zooming, and rotating around in the viewport.. may be its just me.

    Gah, so it's not just me?
    This has been killing me recently since I switched over to 2010 from Max 2008. Whenever I press Alt now to pan/rotate around the viewport then try to use scroll wheel to zoom, nothing happens!
    And it's because exactly what you said, it seems to be sluggish on Alt press response, so it ends up toggling the menu bar at the top even after you've finished pressing the mouse button for navigation.

    I never had this problem on earlier versions, and I'm using the exact same mouse and keyboard setup. They've definitely changed something either with the pan/rotate method or the Alt press detection, and it's definitely much worse than it used to me. It's driving me mad! :(
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    A quick reminder : "Never switch to a new 3DSMax release before the first service pack is out." No matter what the IT guy says ...
  • garriola83
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    garriola83 greentooth
    no way. i have no problems with 2010. to me its faster than the older versions. it can handle more polys in the scene than the older versions, came with polyboost plugins, etc. ive never heard of this alt-middle mouse problem. i use it ALL THE TIME and no problems. maybe...its you guys' thumb-and-mouse discipline?

    maybe its you guys video cards? usually its a visual issue, slow frame rate, buggy visuals, etc, you need a new graphics card.

    ionno, like i said, i love 2010 and im the only one i guess. quad core, 8 GB ram, nvidia 9800gtx, and im using windows 7 ultimate
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    garriola83 wrote: »
    ive never heard of this alt-middle mouse problem. i use it ALL THE TIME and no problems. maybe...its you guys' thumb-and-mouse discipline?

    Nope, I'm using exactly the same computer, mouse and keyboard that I was using on Max 8 and Max 2008, and I never had any issues with the ALT + viewport navigation on those apps. I don't have any problems with Max 2008 on my work machine either, and it's got a completely different hardware configuration. Similarly Max 8 on my laptop exhibits no issues with navigation, it's all working perfectly smoothly.

    The fact that more than one person has noticed this issue only with the 2010 release makes me think they've messed something up somehow (I'd be inclined to think it's related to the new ribbon-style menu stuff, which is painfully slow to build when you click on it... the old-style File menu used to draw immediately, this new one takes a good few milliseconds before it responds).

    I've got a 6gb, i7, GTX275 machine at home that this issue showed up on, it doesn't seem likely that the speed of the machine is an issue (although I guess it's possible that it's some sort of driver issue).
  • Ark
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    Ark polycounter lvl 11
    Im not a max user, but id suggest rolling back your graphics card drivers a few months to see if it helps. Sounds like a similar issue i had with xsi and the latest ati drivers had memory leaks that were causing bad performance and eventual crashes.
  • garriola83
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    garriola83 greentooth
    well as for the alt-middle button issue, i did test it out and it does SOMETIMES not work it does for the most part. i let go of the middle button first or the alt key first and still zooms with the wheel scroll. BUT i remember that i use ctrl+alt+middle button+drag to zoom anyways just to keep it consistent with the middle button to navigate.

    are you perchance using a mouse with more than 3 buttons? like a gaming mouse? at work we only have these cheapo mouses and so to get used to it i use one at home. like someone said it might be a driver issue as well. yeah it cant be the hardware, i cant figure it out since you have a beefier build than me.

    since i got win7 everyhting kinda quickly fades for me anyways so im used to a couple of milliseconds of delay but nothing that i head from the OP.

    ive been using max for a long time and the only build that i had a beef with was max7. other than that i welcomed it with open arms. i tried maya when it was still alias and man....talk about bugs. but any program is not without a few bugs here an there.
  • Ruramuq
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    The ALT interfering with the menu is an old issue, that seems to happen from time to time indeed. but probably less frecuent in max 2010. who knows what causes that. I remember max3 allowed to detach and hide the menu, but then later, not even hiding the menu would fix that

    but there are other bugs in max navigation like:
    without releasing the mouse:
    MMB_PAN ›› ALT ›› RMB click ›› then release all
    and then
    MMB_PAN ›› ALT ›› rotate view—› BUG
    (the navigation jumps when ALT is pressed)

    This bug always happens when MMB and ALT are pressed both when RMB is released to cancel the navigation
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    digging this out :/

    i just had to switch to 2010 because beein onsite in a clients office, however, any way to fix that alt issue by now? i'm getting crazy with that stuff going on.

    Also i have heavy UI slowdowns when working with ePoly, be it modifier or an editable poly object, when i switch any subtool to another it takes quite some time and the right menu is flickering like hell in that time. With eMesh its way faster, it seems like it has to load the submenus and as eMesh has only a few compared to ePoly it takes less time to load them up. Also opening the customize userinterface panel feels like it takes ages to pop up, deleting anything in the quad options is making the right side panel update all the time, which is again 1-2 seconds each time....

    It definitely has nothing to do with the ribbon, i disabled it, but the problem still is there, it always takes 1-2 seconds to switch, while in max2009 on my a bit older mashine at home (only thing thats better at my home office is that i have 8gig of ram and this machine has "only" 4) the switch happens on an instant and doesn't take a second or more to happen.
    It really slows me down as i'm switching the subojects quite often in my workflow.

    Another thing is a delay once using MMB to pan around - edit ok its my mesh 70k polies once i hide it pan is smooth
  • renderhjs
  • Minos
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    Minos polycounter lvl 16
    Neox wrote: »
    digging this out :/

    i just had to switch to 2010 because beein onsite in a clients office, however, any way to fix that alt issue by now? i'm getting crazy with that stuff going on.

    Also i have heavy UI slowdowns when working with ePoly, be it modifier or an editable poly object, when i switch any subtool to another it takes quite some time and the right menu is flickering like hell in that time. With eMesh its way faster, it seems like it has to load the submenus and as eMesh has only a few compared to ePoly it takes less time to load them up. Also opening the customize userinterface panel feels like it takes ages to pop up, deleting anything in the quad options is making the right side panel update all the time, which is again 1-2 seconds each time....

    It definitely has nothing to do with the ribbon, i disabled it, but the problem still is there, it always takes 1-2 seconds to switch, while in max2009 on my a bit older mashine at home (only thing thats better at my home office is that i have 8gig of ram and this machine has "only" 4) the switch happens on an instant and doesn't take a second or more to happen.
    It really slows me down as i'm switching the subojects quite often in my workflow.

    Another thing is a delay once using MMB to pan around - edit ok its my mesh 70k polies once i hide it pan is smooth

    I'm having the same issue. Switching back to 2009... :(
  • CodeFather
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    CodeFather polycounter lvl 15
    Neox wrote: »
    digging this out :/

    i just had to switch to 2010 because beein onsite in a clients office, however, any way to fix that alt issue by now? i'm getting crazy with that stuff going on.

    Also i have heavy UI slowdowns when working with ePoly, be it modifier or an editable poly object, when i switch any subtool to another it takes quite some time and the right menu is flickering like hell in that time. With eMesh its way faster, it seems like it has to load the submenus and as eMesh has only a few compared to ePoly it takes less time to load them up. Also opening the customize userinterface panel feels like it takes ages to pop up, deleting anything in the quad options is making the right side panel update all the time, which is again 1-2 seconds each time....

    It definitely has nothing to do with the ribbon, i disabled it, but the problem still is there, it always takes 1-2 seconds to switch, while in max2009 on my a bit older mashine at home (only thing thats better at my home office is that i have 8gig of ram and this machine has "only" 4) the switch happens on an instant and doesn't take a second or more to happen.
    It really slows me down as i'm switching the subojects quite often in my workflow.

    Another thing is a delay once using MMB to pan around - edit ok its my mesh 70k polies once i hide it pan is smooth


    It is definitely the ribbon ! When turned off, however I get the same old (fast) performance of the previous releases of max. I toggle on and off the ribbon(using the vertical one) with the spacebar, whenever I need to use it, but I prefer to not .Instead, I put the tools I use a lot in a nice custom quad menu, or bind them to hotkeys.
  • CJE
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    CJE polycounter lvl 13
    So has anyone figured out some solution to improving performance in Max 2010? I'm pretty much on the verge of heading back to 2009, because the performance was better tenfold.

    Are there really any features in Max 2010 for the majority of people that you cannot get in 2009? Polyboost covers the Graphite tools.

    All I can think of is the improved viewport rendering like realtime AO and stuff.

    Or are there some tweaks you can do to Max 2010 to improve the performance.

    I find it very hard to work with in a reliable manner. I get lots of system hangs, freezes, and generally piss-poor performance using Max 2010.

    My System:

    Max 2010 x64 SP1
    Windows 7 x64
    4GB DDR2800
    e-VGA 8800 GT Ultra 512mb
    Intel Q6600 Quad Core 2.4ghz
  • rasmus
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    Just made the switch, same story here with those damn annoying navigation twitches... Glad to hear it's not just me! Anyone got a clue how to fix it yet?
  • elte
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    elte polycounter lvl 18
    rasmus wrote: »
    Just made the switch, same story here with those damn annoying navigation twitches... Glad to hear it's not just me! Anyone got a clue how to fix it yet?

    service pack?
  • Mark Dygert
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    rasmus wrote: »
    Just made the switch, same story here with those damn annoying navigation twitches... Glad to hear it's not just me! Anyone got a clue how to fix it yet?
    Here's a rundown of things that have worked for me and other people, to some degree or another.
    - Switch to 64bit, have more than 4gb of ram
    - PhotoshopCS+ is a bit of a pig if you don't need it running (or other apps like itunes or streaming media), don't.
    - Watch out for firefox it has a memory leak, you should restart it at least every hour.
    - Update video drivers
    - Update Max
    - Disable the ribbon for testing, try the different modes.
    - Select your mesh(es) right click and go Object Properties, turn off "Backface culling" if its on.
    - If you can work in separate meshes instead of one giant mesh it will adaptively degrade the unselected objects to wireframe > Bounding box while it tries to preserve the viewport speed on the selected object.
    - When launching max just like photoshop, don't steal focus let it finish loading before moving on or launching other apps.
    - It helps my system if max is the first thing I start up after a system reboot.
    - Make sure your HD has more than 2gb of free space I suggest 10gb.

    Go Customize > Preferances > Viewports tab > Configure driver
    - Try it with "Use cached D3DxMeshes" on and off if you don't see a difference turn it on. Same goes for "Use Incremental Scene Updates"
    - Un-check "Enable Antialaiased Lines in Wireframe Views"
    - Unless texture work is mission critical, un-check "Match Bitmap Size as Closely as Possible" and turn these down. Same goes for using even simple dx shaders in the viewport.
    - Reset your material editor, this is a work bench not a storage closet. Removing materials from the editor won't remove them from your scene unless they aren't bound to a mesh. If you want to work on a material use the eye dropper or "get material from scene browser".
    - If all of that turns up nothing try switching the display driver to openGL or Software and see if the performance is any better.
    - If you have two monitors try running max on #1. If it is already move it to #2, close it and relaunch and see if that works. I remember reading that it runs best on the main monitor but some people mix the cables and use driver software to swap them, I read this can slow things down.
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    - Select your mesh(es) right click and go Object Properties, turn off "Backface culling" if its on.

    hehehehe someone else here stated that it is totally for free and can not have any impact on performance. just had to quote that, as my experience is the same, backfaceculling makes things slower especially if its turned on, in many objects.
  • Mark Dygert
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    Yea it can seem free on certain meshes, just like simple dx shaders can appear to have no impact when only applied to a cube.

    But isn't, it takes extra calculations to figure out what can and can't been seen. "But its removing polys from view, less is better right?" Figuring that out costs more especially when you start zipping around and rotating.

    One other thing I forgot.
    If you don't use sounds in your max files, set the Sound Plug-In back to Default. Customize > Preferances > Animation tab > Sound Plug-In > Assign. This keeps ProSound from initializing and eating up a few more resources, I'm not sure if Per's 3DClean gets this one too as its not a standard plug-in and was fully integrated in 2010.
  • rasmus
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    Vig: Thanks - I pretty much do all those things by default, but this isn't a performance problem, I'm pretty sure of that. It's related to the Alt button, which sometimes get stuck, or causes spasms in viewport rotation. Google gave me this post, and I must say if there is some way of stopping alt from entering the file menu completely that sounds like a good idea - question is how.
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    Max2010 is the first time i really have the feeling something is wrong, i never got stuck when orbiting through the scene, in 2010 it happens all the time, but the fact that alt toggles to the menu and MMB doesn't untoggle it, is present in 2009, 2008 and 9 and can't go any further back to test it but i think its there since the start, the question is, what does it different now?
  • Mark Dygert
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    That... is freaky... Yea 2010 *shrug* hopefully they'll fix it in 2011. Not holding my breath.

    I'm glad I don't run into that issue. I prefer to use 2009 + polyboost but they switched over at work.


    EDIT: Now that you mention it I've run into similar issues where it will just stop rotating an object in the middle of dragging, even though the spinner keeps going the object just stops. It didn't happen at all in 2009 that I remember.
  • CJE
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    CJE polycounter lvl 13
    I've just discovered that the plugin "patch" from 3ds clean for 2009 works fine in 2010. Using this to disable useless plugins more than 1/2'd the startup time of Max 2010.
  • Delerium
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    I have the same problem with 2010 at work with the viewport navigation, the viewport randomly lags and even freeze up, resulting in me having to deselect everything. I never experienced this with any other version of 3dsmax. HIGHLY annoying!
  • McGreed
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    McGreed polycounter lvl 15
    I was actually wondering what to do when you have a newer version of Photoshop and 3DS Max and want to revert back to a older version, because you now have a bunch of documents and scenes made in new version, and I'm guessing you can't load them up in the old versions.

    So what do we do about that, 3DS Max I can save my objects as OBJ, and then remake the materials, but what about PSDs?
  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    by default Photoshop saves as a backwards compatible and slightly larger PSD file so at least adobe did their homework. You can change it in the setting of PS or the first time you save a PSD file.
    The reason some studios are some versions behind the most recent release of max is because of the non existing backwards compatibility. It is even worse if other apps try to support max or 3ds files because usually they turn out broken after a few newer releases of max.
  • McGreed
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    McGreed polycounter lvl 15
    renderhjs, ahh nice to know about Adobe, I just assumed that I would have problems with it, knowing the problem with 3ds max. It really should be a way to 'lowfunction' save a 3DS Max file to earlier versions, should be able to check for things in the file that isn't in the old version and just warn one about it and still save it (and maybe delete the modifiers that doesn't exist in old version). I know that XSI has some sort of backwards exporter, would be nice with something like that for 3ds max.
  • monster
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    monster polycounter
    rasmus, Delerium,

    Here's a couple of thing that were messing me up at one point. If you have a mouse that has tilt wheel "technology", the viewport can lag because the mouse is hardwired to wait a second to make sure the user didn't want to tilt the wheel instead of click it. This problem is more common in Microsoft brand mice with tilt wheel.

    Also, Microsoft Intellipoint mouse drivers can cause the screen 3D Max to hiccup and occasionally corrupt the view. This is because the drivers run a process that takes period screenshots off all the active windows.

    Finally, Max 2010 just always ran slow for me. I could tell 2011 was more solid from the moment I opened it.
  • Bruno Afonseca
    monster wrote: »
    rasmus, Delerium,

    Here's a couple of thing that were messing me up at one point. If you have a mouse that has tilt wheel "technology", the viewport can lag because the mouse is hardwired to wait a second to make sure the user didn't want to tilt the wheel instead of click it. This problem is more common in Microsoft brand mice with tilt wheel.

    Also, Microsoft Intellipoint mouse drivers can cause the screen 3D Max to hiccup and occasionally corrupt the view. This is because the drivers run a process that takes period screenshots off all the active windows.

    Finally, Max 2010 just always ran slow for me. I could tell 2011 was more solid from the moment I opened it.

    is there a way to fix this without having to buy another mouse? it´s driving me insane :(
  • monster
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    monster polycounter
    Sorry bud. It's a hardware issue, not a driver/software issue. It took me forever to find a comfortable ambidextrous wireless mouse without tilt wheel.

    As for the Intellimouse driver, just don't install them. My intellimouse at work seems to work fine without them.
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