Viewport Disaster

[IceAged]

I've been working on a house project for nearly a year now, which started life under Max 9, and recently saved in Max 2008. Renders done in mental ray.

Naturally over time the file has got larger and larger with each new addition, and it currently stands at 52MB. I know it sounds rather large, but it's been working fine, and a lot of the geometry is hidden, (about 670,000 polygons in total). At worst it was a little slow to rotate in the viewport...

However, recently I was working on my laptop, made some changes, then transferred it back to my main PC to do further work. A few days after that, the problems suddenly begun. The 3D viewport constantly regenerates the image, is incredibly slow to rotate, and keeps degenerating into grey lines as i am moving it. Any attempt at displaying smooth and highlights grinds Max to a virtual halt. The same applies to the orthographic views as well as camera/perspective.

A while back I discovered the gc() prompt and reduced the file size by several MB. But it continued to work fine. Other than that, and upgrading Max, I haven’t done anything especially unusual. All other 3D apps and games are working fine on the computer.

I should add that it renders perfectly fine, no problems there. Just that I am stuck with wireframe. Even if I isolate a single object and rotate around it, the viewport suffers terribly in smooth and highlights.

Any ideas.....?

[IceAged]

Can I add also, no other Max files on my computer are suffering from this problem, and any new files that I create work perfectly fine too.

[Tommy L]

Have you accidentally changed which graphics driver you are using? openGL, Direct3d etc. Must be a graphic setting. Or maybe you need to collapse a stack somewhere?

[IceAged]

To my knowledge the graphics settings are exactly the same as before, (DirectX9). I've just tested the file on my other computer and it works perfectly fine. For some reason this file in question is suddenly not responding favourably to my main computer, (GeForce 8800).

 

The only difference I can think of is that I've saved the file using 64 bit Max on the main computer, then gone to 32 bit Max on the laptop, then back again to 64 bit. Could this have made a difference?

 

I don't understand how one particular file would suddenly go wrong on particular computer.

 

Or maybe you need to collapse a stack somewhere?

 

I'm not sure how this would help, Tommy... Have you come accross modifier stacks that cause this kind of problem?

[Tommy L]

Its not file related, as it works on the other machines. So its a setting on the workstation. Maybe a windows update changed something....try re-installing the graphics drivers for the 8800.