vray frame buffer not showing progress

[zacktown]

Been using max 2018.4, vray 3.6.04, windows 7. After weeks without issue, no new installs, buckets just quit marching around the vfb window. No buckets animating as the render progresses, just a progress bar at the bottom. If I enable the max "rendered frame window", the buckets do show progress. Did I turn something off for the vfb not to work?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Nejc Kilar]

Does this happen with progressive rendering as well?

I have a similar issue and it looks like this (video) - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ia7ieqrihj...pport.avi?dl=0

The VFB doesn't update unless you zoom in / out or are playing with the sliders. That holds true for the Adv renderer, RT seems to work fine. Bucket and progressive modes are affected. ActiveShade with the VFB enabled doesn't even start (stuck at translating scene and no CPU usage). The IPR has the same issues as the Adv renderer.

3ds Max and its native frame buffer work OK too.

Quick Specs:
Windows 8.1 (updated)
V-Ray 3.6.04 EDU
Dual Xeons 2696v3
AMD R9 390

As a small note... I used to own V-Ray for C4D as well and that VFB was working just fine - same OS, didn't reinstall anything.

PS: I didn't realize I recorded music in the video as well. Sorry for that -_-

[zacktown]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, your video shows my issue exactly. If I force the vfb to refresh by zooming or tweaking, it will update the buckets or "progress". The max frame render view works, but man, that is not a good way to work. Yes, same issue with progressive renders, no progress, but again, max render view works fine.

Thanks for sharing the video. As far as the music, maybe you just started a "thing". Every time one of us uploads a video for vlado and the team, we include some music. Could be interesting. lol!

[Nejc Kilar]

It seems like its possible that it is a 3ds Max issue. CG support asked me to install a previous version of 3ds Max but right now I'm a little too busy. Is that something that you could try and report back?

[zacktown]

you might be right. Within the past hour, I deprecated to max 2018.0 - no luck. I also tried installing vray 3.6.03 with 2018 - no luck. So, in reinstalled 2018.4 and still not working. I also deprecated my nVidia graphics driver, but no success there either. I don't think it is a graphics card issue since you have an AMD card.

The only other thing that might be worth mentioning is that I started playing with vRay RT for the first time. Perhaps that has something to do with it (messed with preference file)? I am in Hollywood, so 2 am here. I will experiment some more tomorrow and let you know if I have anything new.

[aida]

I've got a similar issue but not exactly the same (max 2018.04, Vray 3.06.04, Windows 7):
3ds max 2018 is freshly installed with some customized toolbars as we wanted to switch from 2016 to 2018.

As soon as I click outside the Vray Frame Buffer window the buckets freeze and also the progress bars in VFB and render dialogue freeze.
The duration of the freeze seems to be related to the number of objects (not polygons). The more objects the longer the freeze. (from a few seconds with one single object to "infinitely" until the render is complete.
From time to time the 3ds max windows flicker. However, the rendering continues in the background and the VFB updates when it's completed. I'm not able to move the corrections sliders or zoom into the VFB.
Progressive rendering works fine.

Should I open a new thread for this issue as it's a little different?

[zacktown]

It seems like these symptoms are part of the same issue. I am not sure if this issue would get more attention with a new thread, or a long one pertaining to the VFB. Your guess is as good as mine.

I've also had my windows flicker. Every 2 or 3 seconds until the render is complete. This only happened when rendering a large scene and I switched over to my browser while rendering. I am running out of things to troubleshoot, but I will do some more digging later today and see if I can find anything.

[gfa2]

We had the same issue and believe it or not updating our Nvidia drivers seemed to fix the problem.

[Nejc Kilar]

zacktown yeah, this is a really odd issue. Funny thing is that its just the V-Ray VFB. Corona works just dandy

I do not have any freezes though except that webpages take longer to open. Low thread priority probably solves that though.

Thanks for chiming in everyone, we really need to bring this issue forward especially as I see there are more of us than I initially thought.

Oh and I am unsure if they drivers could really be at fault? We have nvidia + amd hardware with the same problem. I'll update my drivers as soon as they release anything new I guess.

[aida]

I just installed Max 2018 and Vray 3.6.04 on another Computer and the same freeze issue occurs. So now we've got 3 installations of Max 2018 (all with Nvidia cards) and all of them show the same issue. Updating to the newest graphics driver on one machine did not solve the problem. (Nvidia GTX 1070 with driver 388.71)

Does ChaosGroup support have any idea?

[vlado]

We don't have a clear idea what is causing this. Enabling the "Low thread priority" option in the V-Ray system rollout may help. There are some other potential work-arounds, but they are not safe.


Best regards,
Vlado

[Nejc Kilar]

Alright, so after talking to CG support we've found a temporary solution. Low thread priority, low thread V-Ray build, Windows Custom settings (thread limits, angle settings) all of it didn't help.

The temporary solution is to create another Windows user account and just start 3ds Max + V-Ray in there. It works on my end.

Obviously its a temp solution because there are just so many things tied to my main user account to the point where creating a new one is almost like formatting the system... Kind of

But yeah, at least we are getting a little closer.

vlado does that ring a bell, why a different user account would help relieve the issues?

Thanks!

[vlado]

vlado does that ring a bell, why a different user account would help relieve the issues?

No immediately, there may be so many things tied to the user account, not only 3ds Max settings, but Windows stuff as well. If you are inclined to experiment, maybe see what happens if you delete the 3ds Max settings from "%localappdata%\Autodesk\3dsMax\2018 - 64bit".

Best regards,
Vlado

[Nejc Kilar]

vlado So thats a fun one. The solution to the VFB problem is to delete the folder and it all works like a charm then. Super odd. I have basically a fresh install so I am perplexed that it helped.

To everyone else, just delete your 3ds Max user data like Vlado said and the VFB will start working again.

That said, be mindful to backup the user data because you'll loose personal preferences that 3ds Max has stored (Window layout, units etc...).

Thanks for the help Vlado!

[aida]

I installed Max 2018 including Update 2018.04 and Vray 3.60.04 on yet another computer. Again I've got the freezing buckets problem as soon as I click outside the VFB. Then I deleted the %localappdata%\Autodesk\3dsMax\2018 - 64bit folder and restarted Max. Unfortunately the problem persists.
So this is now the 4th installation with the same issue.
Enabling the "Low thread priority" option in the V-Ray system rollout reduces the freeze time to <1 to 2 seconds on every click into another window (depending on the computer but not related to cpu or gpu power) but does not eliminate it completely.

I'm still hoping for a solution because at the moment I do not yet dare to do the switch to Max 2018.
I wonder why we experience the issue on every machine but obviously not everyone has got the same problem. What could be the difference? Perhaps the fact that we also have Max 2016 installed on every machine? just guessing...