Max error: failed to allocate filter tables

[Neilg]

Started getting this error this afternoon - 'failed to allocate filter tables for this bitmap, the bitmap may render incorrectly'.


Normally, i'd think it was a memory issue.

But:
It's doing it on every scene I open, even ones with a light model and one texture.
They work fine on other peoples machines but mine kicks this out when I open the material editor or try to render. Bitmaps display in the viewport ok.

Absolutley no texture of any kind can be displayed - if i open a new max scene, open the material editor, go to select a bitmap for the diffuse - it crashes with this error the instant I press 'ok'. It's proper screwed up and I cant see any reason why this has started.

Restarted and opened up max while nothing else was running, no change.


This is pretty serious, because it means I cant do any work. Whats happening, why, and how do I fix it?

[jacksc02]

updated your video drivers recently?

[Neilg]

Nope, not changed anything on machine for weeks.

Should I?

[jacksc02]

maybe try with openGL instead of directx and see if that helps or vice versa

[Neilg]

No dice, still instantly kicks up the error when I load any bitmap.

[jacksc02]

do you have the bitmap pager turned on?

[Neilg]

Hm, just tried and 2010 is fine, it's just 2008 that's doing this.
Unfortunatly I cant use 2010 because i'm the only one here with it installed.

How do I know if have it turned on, wheres the option (and what is it)?

edit: looked in the help, turning it on now.

[Neilg]

Kept it open when I loaded a map, heres what it flashed with before it died:

mem usage:
total paged - 12mb
in memory - 0mb
on disk - 11mb
non paged - 0mb

Number of pages:
total - 50
in memory - 1
on disk - 49

activity
num flushes - 248
dirty flushes - 199
num loads - 150
bytes written - 47mb
bytes read - 36mb

memory limit - 0mb


Is this healthy? Just grabbed the closest bitmap, but it does it with all of them.

[jacksc02]

where are you reading that from?

[Neilg]

The bitmap pager statistics, is that not right?
I just searched help for bitmap pager and it told me I could bring up the stats through the user interface, so I grabbed them.

edit: read more, yeah i've got it turned on. Sorry for being a spaz...
edit2: turning it off makes no difference, still crashes.

[jacksc02]

I have never seen those stats before!
How did you get them to come up?

how big are the bitmaps you are using?

[Neilg]

customise - user interface - toobars - cat: all commands - bitmap pager stats. haha.

I re-installed max earlier which didnt help, but just then I took out vray, exported my license, uninstalled and put everything back in again...

Now it's working, just loaded up a 6k wide map in the material editor fine.
10 minutes ago it crashed on a 300px square jpg.

What an awful problem.

[jacksc02]

be careful with JPGs that are compressed.
The file size might get compresses but when max has to uncompress them it eats up a whole lot of memory.