Max 2012 unusable

[tricky]

We have really been trying hard to use 2012 since we upgraded a few weeks ago from Max2009. We have even been pushing ourselves to use the slate material editor too - potentially very poweful.

However, we are finding it to be increddibly slow. We seem to get to a point with a project where everything becomes dog slow. Clicking on a button can leave you hanging for a good few seconds. So often, we have a windows dialogue box appearing telling us that Max isn't responding, and would we like to end it. More often than not, it does recover after a minute or so.

Our machines are no slouches - i7 processors with 16GB RAM and 480GTX cards.

We do have 2013 which I have installed. I didn't want to start using this in production because some of our plugins (mainly vray) aren't yet available for it. I am running out of options though and I may have to and hope things are better (Autodesk tell us that they are!!! Mmmm!).

I guess another option for us is to downgrade to 2011 or 2010 which I think we can do on the subscription program. I have not used either of these editions (we jumped from 2009 straight up to 2012). Are either of these editions any better?

[simmsimaging]

I found 2011 faster in the interface stuff, can't remember if there was a big difference when I went from 2010 to 2011. I will say that aside from the weird lags with dialogs etc, 2012 is faster for viewport navigation with hi-poly meshes. I haven't installed 2013 yet so can't comment. I will wait till all the plugins are updated before I roll over to that one.

[glorybound]

My 2012 was slow, too, but once I tweak Windows I was OK. I tried all the suggested tweaks, and something worked, so I stuck with it.

I found 2011 faster in the interface stuff, can't remember if there was a big difference when I went from 2010 to 2011. I will say that aside from the weird lags with dialogs etc, 2012 is faster for viewport navigation with hi-poly meshes. I haven't installed 2013 yet so can't comment. I will wait till all the plugins are updated before I roll over to that one.

[tricky]

My 2012 was slow, too, but once I tweak Windows I was OK. I tried all the suggested tweaks, and something worked, so I stuck with it.

Which tweaks did you try Bobby?

[tricky]

I have a scene, created in Max 2012, that is 4.5MB in size. When I open this scene in Max 2013 and save as something else, the file size jumps to 24.5MB. Even if I save from Max2013 as a new 2012 file, it is still 24MB.

What's that all about then?

[simmsimaging]

"compress on save" is probably turned off in your preferences 2013. that makes a huge difference in file sizes.

[super gnu]

is that a feature that was on by default in earlier versions?

[tricky]

That's probably it then.

Anyway, ignoring that, what are the tweaks I can make to Windows to make 2012 run better?

[Morbid Angel]

Honestly guys, the node based mat editor is not very usable in my opinion. Coming from maya's hypershade, its quite cluttered and very slow! I also forced my self to work in it on a project (simple one too) and after some time switched back to old material editor (thank God they kept it there).

[simmsimaging]

Honestly guys, the node based mat editor is not very usable in my opinion. Coming from maya's hypershade, its quite cluttered and very slow! I also forced my self to work in it on a project (simple one too) and after some time switched back to old material editor (thank God they kept it there).

I do use the old mat editor for most quick things, but the Slate editor is immensely useful for complex materials IMO. There is no way my pea-like brain can keep track of the complexity of some materials like it can with nodes. Never used maya so can't speak to that, and I'm sure it could be better done in Max, but I would hate to live without the new mat editor now

/b

[chriserskine]

I'm using slate all the time and I've never gone back to the old one. I find on big scene i turn off the global rendering (alt+ctrl+U). its runs quick after that. though it dose mean updating material previews all the time.

[simmsimaging]

good tip - didn't know that one! I agree, the material preview rendering is a bit punishing if you have a lot of libraries open, but it's still worth it, at least to me.

[rivoli]

I agree, the material preview rendering is a bit punishing if you have a lot of libraries open, but it's still worth it, at least to me.

yes, when you start to have a lot of textures to load and render it gets painfully slow on startup. I usually turn off auto update for the ones at very high resolution, hdrs for example, and it helps a bit.
still I wouldn't ho back to the old one anyway. it took quite a while to get used to slate, but now I find it very easy to use and more efficient than the old one.

[Morne]

coming back to the thread, Tricky, if you're using Nitrous make sure you have progressive refinement switched OFF. That fixes a lot of lags you may expereince after a render is finished. For other things in windows, maybe set your performance settings for "BEST PERFORMACE". This switching your windows look to the old windows 2000 and turns OFF Aero and the little animation features when windows move, maximise etc. Strangely however some users have reported it to be the other way around meaning that switching Aero ON, speeds Max up for them.

Just last week I also discovered my Max FLIES suddenly just by switching my system units to METER and my display units to MM

[m_hinks]

"Just last week I also discovered my Max FLIES suddenly just by switching my system units to METER and my display units to MM"

Really, stupid AutoDesk, if that is really true I cant say I'll be surprised. I still prefer good old 2008!!!