Anybody else having issues with the UI of Max? The UI of Max 2018 is really sluggish on my machine (see signature) and every time I switch between sub-object modes (vertex, edge, poly etc.) or when selecting objects, the Command Panel starts flashing and Max freezes for 2-3 seconds before I can do anything again. It’s hell working like this and it’s really getting on my nerves. Same with Max 2016 but a bit less severe.
So far I tried the following: rebooting the PC, deleting my ENU folder, closing all active programs, closing all apps in the taskbar, disabling anti-virus, changing the Power Management type to Performance… nothing works. What’s strange is that yesterday after I did a clean install of Windows on my laptop (due to adding a new mSATA disk), I installed Max 2016 on it and the UI was very snappy with no perceivable delays. However, forget about reinstalling Windows on my workstation, not going to happen!
I remember that Max has always had issues like this with the UI - after a period of time it starts becoming progressively slower which really sucks. Really, what’s so hard to make things just work? It’s always Max that constantly has some problems. It’s a non-stop battle with its flaws. I feel like with Max I spend a third of my time trying to fix things instead of focusing on doing my work.
Ouch, sorry for your issues. My MAX 2018, after all the updates, has been solid. I have noticed that my video drivers have been a hit/miss and many times I have had to roll back drivers.
Max in general for me is a nightmare constantly not responds - locks up - wait 2 mins comes back. had this with my old machine also. Having nothing but issues at times. Especially on large scenes with xrefs, merging light cache takes like 10 mins and if you cancel it another 10 mins to comes to life.
This with a dual xeon and 128 gb ram i wasnt expecting.
I haven’t had UI lag, but other issues have been resolved by rolling back drivers. Vlado posted an NVIDIA driver number to use, which is stable. Currently, I am using the latest NVIDIA driver successfully, but the last one was buggy and I had to roll back to the previous. I waited a month, tried the newest, and it is fine now. I do a clean update each time, so that might make a difference. When you install, pick custom and at the bottom there is a clean install button.
"Solution:
Although it may seem contradictory, disabling Hyperthreading (for Intel CPUs) or SMT (simultaneous multithreading, for AMD CPUs) may actually speed up 3ds Max performance.
For Intel CPUs, the instructions at this PC Mag link may be helpful. Consulting the tech support personnel of your PC manufacturer (or of your motherboard manufacturer) may help as well.
Click on OK in each menu to save the changes, then reboot your PC and re-test.
Note: if one of the above settings doesn?t seem to work, you may want to repeat the above steps, but delete your earlier variable and replace it with the next one."
I only managed to fix this with a complete reinstall of Windows. Yea, it’s brutal but it’s the only thing that worked for me. Isn’t 3ds max “fun”! I would celebrate the day I find a viable alternative to 3ds Max. I’m having an eye on the development of Blender 2.8. Hopefully it’s more versatile for arch/product vis than previous versions.
Have been having the same issues lately. It’s super annoying. My other workstation who has the exact same Max installed with same plugins etc is running super smooth while my power beast is struggling to switch between suboject modes etc. It’s tiresome!
I’ve been struggling with this too, and I’ve made a adjustment that appears to have improved things quite a bit,. Go to Windows Security, App and Browser control, Scroll to the bottom > Exploit protection, Exploit protection settings, Click on Program Settings at the top, Add program to customise ( by file name 3dsmax.exe) then tick all the boxes and ensure all the controls are off. I hope this helps.
A complete format for me also helped enormously. After 1.5 years of using Max it just became too sluggish and a format was the only thing that helped with all my problems.
I’ve noticed any virus detection software that runs in realtime affects cpu usage tremendously. Webroot is the culprit in our office. Check your cpu usage as well.
Going to try some of these tests. As I’ve posted before, many of us in the studio are suddenly getting terrible lag even just opening 3dsMax render settings. Material editor, light lister and others are bad too, up to ten seconds, which really adds up over the day. Just to add another voice to the issue…
The first thing you should try is to move to V-Ray 5.2, and see if the material editor improves thanks to the implemented Qt UIs.
If that works, then the issue with lag is purely the old UI controls and the way Max now handles them, there’s little that you can do to make things (much) better, besides changing the Qt driver, for now.
Another thing that i can see is that with some other plugins installed (i’d rather not name names.) the material editor takes a lot longer to show up.
So, before resetting max, or formatting a disk, try and slim the set of plugins to the bare minimum (i.e. Max + V-Ray), run some test, and then add back in the plugins one by one, running the same tests.
At some point you’ll know which is doing what.
I’d rather you do :). I’m starting to slim down my installed plugins, but working for +10 years and having an extensive library, there are always some traces left on older objects/shaders, so not having them installed isn’t always an option. I wish I knew this before I started using a LOT of plugins.
Eheh, i hear you.
In fact the one bit i mentioned earlier wasn’t reproable (i endeavored to time a few things via scripting yesterday, and as i did so the behaviour disappeared.), so it was good for me to not name names.
Know we are on the lookout for such things, and whenever humanly possible we comm with the plugin owners to try and find solutions.
We’re not omniscient thought (that’d be boring!), so by all means keep reporting on anything out of the ordinary, or otherwise unexpected.
I’d rather you do :). I’m starting to slim down my installed plugins, but working for +10 years and having an extensive library, there are always some traces left on older objects/shaders, so not having them installed isn’t always an option. I wish I knew this before I started using a LOT of plugins.