Gander0 Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Hi I've been working on a project in Max 5 recently and my viewports have slowed to a painstakingly low speed. In the task manager me CPU usage goes up to 100% if i even think about moving my mouse. My question is what can i do to speed these viewports up? (I'm not that bothered about rendering times, but of course faster would be better.) My spec is: AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1.73 GHz 1.00 GB of RAM All in Wonder Radeon 8500 DV Edition I can't really afford to fork out too much cash, was considering getting another 512 RAM, will this help or do i need a serious overhaul. I am very grateful for any suggestions cheap or expensive. By the way I mostly concentrate on moving image which means DV too, but am starting to concentrate on architetural aspects. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Originally posted by Gander0: ...My question is what can i do to speed these viewports up? (I'm not that bothered about rendering times, but of course faster would be better.) ... All in Wonder Radeon 8500 DV Edition Hi Jan, What Display Driver do you have configured in your Preference>Viewport settings? If your video card has hardware accelleration, OpenGL would be better than Heidi. If you look at the topic "another new system post..." in this forum, there is some very good information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 6, 2003 Author Share Posted September 6, 2003 Thanks Fran I had a look at that topic and had a play around with the preferences. I experimented switching OpenGL to Direct3D and found the latter much faster in wireframe mode (though still not great!). As soon as i switched to Smooth (shaded) mode however the viewport went black?? So i had to revert to OpenGL again. Do I need to download DirectX 9.0 instead of 8.1 or something? Still slow anyway though! Couldn't find any reference to Heidi anywhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Gander, Here's some quick tips... 1) Disable any firewall software or antivirus software while using max. 2) Run worm cleaners and update your OS to the latest security/recommended updates. http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ 3) Make sure your running recent chipset drivers for your motherboard. 4) Empty your temp files, temp inet files, and run adaware http://www.lavasoftusa.com and another registry cleaner. Use the registry cleaner to remove all unnecessary start programs...or mainly remove them yourself if you understand how to use regedit. A decent regcleaner... http://www.macecraft.com 5) Defrag your harddrive. 6)If your running Windows XP, disable unnecessary flare http://www.3dluvr.com/content/article/123 7)Run memtest86 to verify your ram is functioning to spec. http://www.memtest86.com 8) Run sisoft sandra to verify your system is running under spec. http://www.sisoftware.net/index.html?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_x86&langx=en&a= Many times general system maintance can result in a much greater boost in performance then any actual hardware upgrading will give you. Best to try the methods which cost no money, before using the methods that do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 Disable any firewall software or antivirus software while using max. So much for web enabled I-drop from the Asset manager! But i guess that could be routed through a webserver in the office too, and a hardware firewall etc. OT, but this discussion, has got some opinions about the speed of the CG Architect web site, you might be interested in Greg. http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=105034721 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 6, 2003 Author Share Posted September 6, 2003 Hi Greg, Thanks for your response and thanks very much for your links, which I have used and will keep for future reference. Many however I had already undertaken as I have been reading your answers to previous posts, also my work machine also is mainly offline and only online to carry out updates etc therefore there is no great accumulation of trash. I have also formatted all drives fairly recently. Anyway I followed all the directions and as a result I can’t find any obvious problems. As I said earlier to Fran my wire frame manipulations seemed to speed up with DirectX enabled in my 3D Max preferences though my shaded view went black..... Could there be anything to go on there? Or do i have to consider spending cash and if so what on? (Hopefully not very much!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 7, 2003 Author Share Posted September 7, 2003 Hi there I changed everything to editable polygons and got the count down to 51,187, which doesn't sound like much to me. When i orbit the CPU usage is usually between 90-100% Is MEM Page File usage? If so it goes from 80MB to 160MB when i start Max, then up to 200MB when i load my scene. Then goes to 300MB when I enter textured camera viewport. Orbiting doesn't seem to affect this number. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigcahunak Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 If your windows and max maintenance (all of what greg mentioned earlier) are resonable and your viewport is still slow then hardware wise a better video card is the only thing that might help you. your cpu and memory are more than adequate for the job. Your video card... prolly not the best for max, but still shouldnt crash under the load you mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigcahunak Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 what size of a scene are you using (poly#)? when you orbit around, whats your CPU and MEM usage readings in task manager? if anything it would probably be your video card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 7, 2003 Author Share Posted September 7, 2003 Thanks again. Its not that my system is crashing, it just slows down to an unbearable pace. I've ordered a new graphics card (the best deal i could find) which is a NVIDIA Quadro 4 980 XGL 128MB (I hope its compatible with my system and i hope it will work better than the one i have, maybe you can put my mind at rest? Cheers for all your help I'll let you know if this sorts me out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 7, 2003 Author Share Posted September 7, 2003 Sorry to be a pain folks but i got another question this time regarding the video card which is now on its way to me. As I wrote previously the card is a NVIDIA Quadro 4 980 XGL 128MB which is 8xAGP. My Motherboard however is an Asus A7V333 which has a AGP 4x Slot. Is my problem going to be reduced funtionality or will it not even work? If the former is there anyway of optimising this....Has anyone had these problems? Cheers! Gander Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigcahunak Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 I might be a little off here, but I'd say that mobos up to 6 months old are probably already equiped with 8x AGP. Difference would prolly be felt in gaming, which I dont do, where lots of polys with lots of textures and effects are moving fast in realtime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigcahunak Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Gander It will work, but it will work at 4x. As for your problems: if they where ment to be solved at 8x then they will be solved at 4x as well... Hope it answers your question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 8, 2003 Author Share Posted September 8, 2003 Thanks again!! Thats good to know. Where are the differences in x4 and x8 AGP shown then? Do only recent motherboards have x8 or am i way behind the times? Gander Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gander0 Posted September 11, 2003 Author Share Posted September 11, 2003 Cheers bigcahunak! Needless to say , i'm pretty chuffed with my new card. Its tons faster and coping well with the scene with which i was working. Got it for a great deal on e-bay and my other card seems to be clocking up a decent amount of cash as we speak.....Happy days! Gander Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigcahunak Posted September 11, 2003 Share Posted September 11, 2003 Glad all works for the best for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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