Recommended settings for Video Card, etc.?

[windrockwater]

I finally got a new video card. A GTX 580. I have a Dell T7400 Dual Quad Xeon rig. I am using Max 2012 and Vray 2.0. Are there any recommended tweaks or changes to default video driver settings or display settings or Max preference settings?

Basically, how can i max out the usefulness of my setup for working in Max/Vray? any suggestions? Things to change in the Nvidia Control Panel? THere are a lot of settings in there. Thanks alot.

[Alan Iglesias]

The only thing I've done with my 580s is overclock the GPUs for about a 15% GPU rendering speed increase.

(See: http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...GPUs-Out-There)

-Alan

[AltoR]

Hi,
Interesting thread because I have basically the same config as yours (24Gb RAM, Dual Xeon 3.33GHz, max 2012, GTX 580 and VRay 2.2).
I had bad experiences in the past with overclocking so I am not doing it anymore.
Nothing to change in the nVidia Control panel so far as I know as the viewports in max are handled by the driver (Direct3D or Nitrous). I recommend you to use Nitrous which is more efficient in most cases, although some people find that Direct3D is better in some particular cases: you need to do some tests to see by yourself. But: be aware that there is a common well known bug with max2012/VRay 2.2/GTX 5xx and Nitrous driver: some big lags occur when orbiting around high poly objectsand it can be very annoying. So I suggest that you install max 2013 and VRay 2.3 to avoid it.
Personnaly I can not jump into max 2013/VRay 2.3 because I use Multiscatter plugin which is still not ready for VRay 2.3 ... so I stay with max2012/VRay 2.2 for now.

I have a question, maybe you can answer me: I wonder what is the latest GTX 580 nvidia driver which is compatible with VRay RT ? I use the 270 WHQL for now but it is quite old and I'dl ike to upgrade it but I don't know which one is the best at the moment ... ?

Thx,

tOm

[AltoR]

Hi,

Can you tell me what nVidia driver do you use please ?

[windrockwater]

I am using the new GTX 580 with the Nvidia 296.10 driver. I am using that video card to drive a 30" dell U3011 (2560 x 1600) . Notrous is turned off. I am also using a 9500GT card to drive 2 separate side monitors (dell 20" each). I am working on a 80mb terrain mesh.

There is a consistent slight delay in the viewport when i select something or want to move around the viewport. Its really quite annoying. For example if I click the mousewheel to pan the viewport, there is a delay. Once the delay is over, i can rotate the whole mesh pretty well and it is responsive. I would try just about anything to improve this viewport performance!!! I am running out of ideas on what to try. I have a fast SSD drive, dual 3ghz Xeon workstation with 20gb RAM, etc. Would I still have this issue with a new i7 rig? What about an incredibly overpriced Quadro card?

Any ideas?

[AltoR]

Max 2013 !

OK: I can talk a bit of that problem because it is well known and I spent a looooooot of time to fight with it. For going straight to the point: you only have two options. The first one, that I am doing myself, is to do a keyboard shortcut for the "Pan" command and another keyboard shortcut for the "Select Object" command. That way, when you want to orbit around an object without this annoying lag, just hit your keyboard to go into "Pan" mode and you'll get rid of the lag. Than come back in "Select object" mode with the second keyboard shortcut.
The second way to do is to go for 3dsmax 2013: I tested it and it works much better than 2012 for this particular lag problem. But I had to switch back to max 2012 because of plugins that are not ready yet for max 2013 ...
By the way, you have to deactivate Aero in Windows preferences as it is known to make troubles with 3dsmax and Nitrous.
Changing for another cpu (like i7) won't help in my opinion but, I'm not sure though I read that this lag problem is mostly due to Dual Xeon, Windows 7 and nVidia gpu configurations.

Try to do some researches on Autodesk Area forums, you will find usefull infos.
Also I already did a thread for this lag problem, here: http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...ver-for-3dsmax

I did some tests with other CG guys for comparing gpus performances and, believe me: GTX 580 is way more faster than Quadro 4000 and much cheaper I also tested an ATI FirePro V8800 and it was more or less the same performances as the Quadro 4000.
You should definitely consider switching to 3dsmax 2013 in my point of view.

Do you run VRay RT with 296.10 driver ? I just can't: RT crashes everytime ... Pease let me know if it works for you,

Thx

[rivoli]

For example if I click the mousewheel to pan the viewport, there is a delay. Once the delay is over, i can rotate the whole mesh pretty well and it is responsive. I would try just about anything to improve this viewport performance!!!

that has to do with a hit testing max performs when you use the mouse to pan or orbit instead of the relative icons. there shouldn't be any lag if you use them instead, if I remember correctly. as long as I remember, the delay is dependent on hardware configuration, and it may disappear completely if you switch the graphic card. might not be worth it though, as I think they're working on solving the problem over at autodesk.

[windrockwater]

Do you run VRay RT with 296.10 driver ? I just can't: RT crashes everytime ... Pease let me know if it works for you,

Thx

Just tested and VrayRT works fine for me. (Vray RT 2.20.02).