Windows 10 Update and 3D Studio Max 2015 Train Wreck

[gman5250]

The black out during boot up seems a bit suspicious to me. Maybe there's a glitch in the video driver setup? From the 3dsmax side, you could try to switch from the Nitrous driver to the legacy D3D and see what happens. If you can't access the video config from within 3dsmax you can use the external application "change graphics mode" in the 3dsmax folder.

Forgive me a few simple questions, just to have a base line:

Did you install 3dsmax within the UAC structure (c:\programs) ?
Did you update Win10 from Win7/8 or do a fresh installation?
Is it up to date regarding SP / Hotfixes?

I also gather on the net that the Win10 dotnet / c++ libraries are different and can cause problems for all sorts of older applications which can not be circumvented by running in compatibility modes etc.

This thread is quite interesting.
I'm in the process of redesigning my system and switching to Win10, with 3dsmax 2016. There are a few road blocks to be solved, one of them is getting SBuilderX 64 to work und Win10. That one could be solved already by a work around. But a stable 3dsmax is also a main goal of course.


Cheers,
Mark

It's suspect to me too Mark.

To answer your questions.

Max is installed to the main c:drive and observing all of the Autodesk default protocols.
I built this box with Windows 7, and allowed the Win10 upgrade offer.
Win10 has been constantly updating since I allowed the upgrade a few months ago. I haven't added any external hotfixes...only allowed updates. Always with fingers crossed, standing on one foot and facing east on the second day of the month when the church bells ring.


BTW: I have SBuilderX 64 working in Win10 bit it is as cranky as a two dollar w**re.

 

[Jafo]

It's suspect to me too Mark.

...only allowed updates. Always with fingers crossed, standing on one foot and facing east on the second day of the month when the church bells ring.

I've heard tell that won't be enough...

 

[wombat666]

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

I guess you might have come across this really useful little widget but it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Needless to say I'm stubbornly running W7.

 

[gman5250]

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

I guess you might have come across this really useful little widget but it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Needless to say I'm stubbornly running W7.

With all of the rumors and stories running wild at the time of the original offer and update, I installed that guy at the suggestion of a friend/techie.
It was shortly after I enabled GWX that MS changed my "Shut Down" button to not allow me to turn the computer off without ticking the "Update and Shut Down" button.

Mine:

I could swear I hear muffled giggling each time MS comes to re-arrange my digital feng shui...now I get it.

 

[AussieMan]

Maybe I have been lucky as I haven't installed any of that rubbish on my computer. And NOBODY has control of my start/shutdown button but little ol' me.

I did a clean install of W10 Pro 64 bit and have not had any forced upgrades. I even have the choice to uninstall unwanted updates.

 

[Penzoil3]

Ok, here's how to control W-10 updates. Found it- takes a little work to do, but you can control the beast.
Sue
www.thewindowsclub.com/make-windows-10-notify-you-before-downloading-or-installing-windows-updates

 

[gman5250]

Ok, here's how to control W-10 updates. Found it- takes a little work to do, but you can control the beast.
Sue
www.thewindowsclub.com/make-windows-10-notify-you-before-downloading-or-installing-windows-updates

Thanks Sue...I'll give that a look too.

If I can control the beast and be productive I'll be satisfied. I'm not really a Win10 "Basher", I actually quite like the program when it simply functions as intended. I'm critical of the MS policy that gives them Carte Blanch to come in and start mucking about in my workspace. But...I agreed to let them do it so it is incumbent upon me to accept responsibility for accepting those terms.

 

[gman5250]

Maybe I have been lucky as I haven't installed any of that rubbish on my computer. And NOBODY has control of my start/shutdown button but little ol' me.

I did a clean install of W10 Pro 64 bit and have not had any forced upgrades. I even have the choice to uninstall unwanted updates.

Hey Pat...you got an extra room? I'll pack up all my stuff and move down to your place.

 

[AussieMan]

Wish I did have one mate.

 

[gman5250]

Update and follow up.

I emphasize that I am not MS bashing here, but sharing a unique situation on my unique system, while attempting to pass my experience forward to others who push the performance envelope to it's upper threshold.

I've worked with all of the fixes and suggestions and have thinned out the variables.
I'll share what I found.


Pre-update:
My workflow only required opening 3DS Max 2015 at the beginning of my work day. I left the program open all day long, working with multiple high poly and high texture load configurations. I ran Photoshop CS6 concurrent along with MCX. My desktop was configured in such a way that allowed me to work between programs seamlessly. My work day is typically 16 hours minimum. I never had memory crashes pre-update.

Post Update:
The texture loading issue looked like a possible until I went to a model that I have not worked on for a few weeks.
The last time I worked with the file was pre-update, and I had no issues at all. Yesterday, I opened the file and Max locked up immediately, forcing a hard shut down with task manager and a system re-boot. I tried another file that I have not touched for a number of weeks. Same result.

In another case, I did a small edit in Max to my working interior.mdl file for the F2A Buffalo. This is my full textured, mapped and ready to export file. Max became sluggish, but allowed the export. I took the model into MCX to do the export for the simulator working .mdl file. That went fine and I placed the interior.mdl file in the sim.

Upon opening Prepar3D I was able to initiate the program and attempt to load a saved flight. The sim began to boot the flight and went to a loaded scenario with the sound and ambient noise of that particular flight audible...but only black screen. I gave the sim adequate time to boot in, but never went past black screen.

My take away was that system resources were maxed out. I checked task manager and processes...all of my assets were operating within the green with plenty of HP available for the P3D to do it's thing.
It seems that there is a larger issue than simply a Max/Windows10 conflict.

At this point I'm experiencing memory saturation even in basic Max models with no UVW mapping or textures applied. This happens within minutes of opening the program.

I'm slowly grinding to a lockup and haven't been able to isolate out any fix. I've taken into account the possibility of a security breach, but find it unlikely that I would be compromised at exactly the same moment of the upgrade.

Also I've had numerous intrusions where the system bogs down while I'm working in Photoshop...not Max, or maybe in the sim. In either case the HD goes berserk, buzzing and humming while things freeze up. I go to my resources map and C:drive is using 100% available resources. The last time this happened, I had yet another Win10 update, resulting in further degradation of my system performance.

Looks like my only alternative is to bite the bullet and do a clean re-install of Windows and all of my programs. I do this with great hesitation due to the fact that it will consume many, many hours of my time.
I have already lost two years of hard work to another, previous update debacle...now I'm going to endure this Bravo Sierra...again.

Am I happy??? No I'm not happy. I'm fricking pissed off and to be honest I'm in baseball bat, leg breakin' mode.

Hopefully this data will help others avoid any similar occasion on their own OS.

 

[Mach3DS]

Update and follow up.

I emphasize that I am not MS bashing here, but sharing a unique situation on my unique system, while attempting to pass my experience forward to others who push the performance envelope to it's upper threshold.

I've worked with all of the fixes and suggestions and have thinned out the variables.
I'll share what I found.


Pre-update:
My workflow only required opening 3DS Max 2015 at the beginning of my work day. I left the program open all day long, working with multiple high poly and high texture load configurations. I ran Photoshop CS6 concurrent along with MCX. My desktop was configured in such a way that allowed me to work between programs seamlessly. My work day is typically 16 hours minimum. I never had memory crashes pre-update.

Post Update:
The texture loading issue looked like a possible until I went to a model that I have not worked on for a few weeks.
The last time I worked with the file was pre-update and I had no issues at all. I opened the file and Max locked up immediately, forcing a hard shut down with task manager and a system re-boot. I tried another file that I have not touched for a number of weeks. Same result.

In another case, I did a small edit in Max to my working interior.mdl file for the F2A Buffalo. This is my full textured, mapped and ready to export file. Max became sluggish, but allowed the export. I took the model into MCX to do the export for the simulator working .mdl file. That went fine and I placed the interior.mdl file in the sim.

Upon opening Prepar3D I was able to initiate the program and attempt to load a saved flight. The sim began to boot the flight and went to a loaded scenario with the sound and ambient noise of that particular flight audible...but only black screen. I gave the sim adequate time to boot in, but never went past black screen.

My take away was that system resources were maxed out. I checked task manager and processes...all of my assets were operating within the green with plenty of HP available for the P3D to do it's thing.
It seems that there is a larger issue than simply a Max/Windows10 conflict.

At this point I'm experiencing memory saturation even in basic Max models with no UVW mapping or textures applied. This happens within minutes of opening the program.

I'm slowly grinding to a lockup and haven't been able to isolate out any fix.

Also I've had numerous intrusions where the system bogs down while I'm working in Photoshop...not Max, or maybe in the sim. In either case the HD goes berserk, buzzing and humming while things freeze up. I go to my resources map and C:drive is using 100% available resources. The last time this happened, I had yet another Win10 update, resulting in further degradation of my system performance.

Looks like my only alternative is to bite the bullet and do a clean re-install of Windows and all of my programs. I do this with great hesitation due to the fact that it will consume many, many hours of my time.
I have already lost two years of hard work to another, previous update debacle...now I'm going to endure this Bravo Sierra...again.

Am I happy??? No I'm not happy. I'm fricking pissed off and to be honest I'm in baseball bat, leg breakin' mode.

Hopefully this data will help others avoid any similar occasion on their own OS.

GMAN....before you commit to that. I had something similar once...I needed to update some firmware on my MB. Any chance you might need the same same thing?

 

[gman5250]

GMAN....before you commit to that. I had something similar once...I needed to update some firmware on my MB. Any chance you might need the same same thing?

I'll give that a look Rick, bit the timing seems unlikely. I won't be doing the re-install for two or three days yet. We have 80-100 MPH wind coming tonight/tomorrow with 30 foot waves. I'll wait for the storm to quiet down before I attempt any big mods to the OS.

 

[Mach3DS]

Roger that Gordon. Im also in the PNW...WA. so we're starting to get some wind and rain up here today...supposed to hit tonight anso tomorrow...all the best!

 

[gman5250]

As of the last re-boot...just now. Multiple attempts....

Boots to desktop...icons and task bar are active...goes to black screen for a few minutes...desktop comes back up...icons and taskbar are now DOA...no response to mouse roll over.
I use the keyboard to open any menu i.e. calculator...once the menu opens the icons and task bar go live again and stay that way as long as the menu remains open.
I close the menu...desktop icons and taskbar go flat line.

Looks like the wings are folding and she's getting ready to auger in....

The good news...The cutsie little Google pop up ads are faithfully popping up (thankfully, not on this forum) and presenting for my consumption, every fricking addon I have perused over the course of the last week. Every...exact...one.

Well, at least that works.....

 

[roger-wilco-66]

That doesn't look good. Did you check the event logging? I'm sure you did. Maybe there's a hint. The desktop blacking out for such a long duration is definitely not normal.

Further, do you notice a lot of disc activity prior to the other instabilities?

Reason for the question is Photoshop (I work with the latest version). It seems that 16 gb RAM is not enough anymore if you work with it all day, parallel to other power applications. At some point it takes such a huge chunk of memory that the systems starts to allocate memory to the pagefile.sys, which bogs the the system down due to all that swapping. Eventually this can lead to time outs and instabilities.

Might not apply to your case, but I thought I throw this in anyhow.


Cheers,
Mark

 

[hairyspin]

Back before I moved to Win 10 my trusty Win7 install started wading through tar with resources heavily used despite my not doing anything. It was a Google process bogging down in the background and once killed from the Startup list Win 7 was its normal sprightly self and I forgot about it. Have a look for background garbage, automatic update searching and suchlike...

Shift + Restart gets you to menu for Safe Mode and other diagnostics etc

 

[gman5250]

That doesn't look good. Did you check the event logging? I'm sure you did. Maybe there's a hint. The desktop blacking out for such a long duration is definitely not normal.

Further, do you notice a lot of disc activity prior to the other instabilities?

Reason for the question is Photoshop (I work with the latest version). It seems that 16 gb RAM is not enough anymore if you work with it all day, parallel to other power applications. At some point it takes such a huge chunk of memory that the systems starts to allocate memory to the pagefile.sys, which bogs the the system down due to all that swapping. Eventually this can lead to time outs and instabilities.

Might not apply to your case, but I thought I throw this in anyhow.


Cheers,
Mark

Thanks Mark,

Yeah I check event logging, but nothing stands out. I get different anomalies on different sessions, but there is no one thing that is a common denominator.

Photoshop CS6 doesn't seem to be the culprit, but it does need to be maintained during long sessions. I routinely clear the memory using the tools inside Photoshop. Also, I run into the memory leak in Max even when Photoshop has not been booted.

Disc activity:
Yep...I get these periods where the disc goes ballistic, but not timed to or associated with any particular event. It just takes off on its own and goes to 100% usage. I usually open up the task manager/performance and watch the graphs. Only C:drive...not CPU or the others. They remain stable. I nave noted that on a few occasions I have had an update notification when I go to shut down the PC. This is where the Update and Shut Down option shows up. No options to refuse unless I do a hard shut down via the switch, or holding down the start button on the box for five seconds.

 

[gman5250]

Back before I moved to Win 10 my trusty Win7 install started wading through tar with resources heavily used despite my not doing anything. It was a Google process bogging down in the background and once killed from the Startup list Win 7 was its normal sprightly self and I forgot about it. Have a look for background garbage, automatic update searching and suchlike...

Shift + Restart gets you to menu for Safe Mode and other diagnostics etc

I've actually spent quite a bit of time looking at the processes etc. during one of these events. I was looking specifically for Google or other data harvesting ops who might be utilizing my resources. I can never really pinpoint any particular thing that stands out. They all seem to be fairly benign...during the event.

Interesting thing today Tom. I booted in this AM and noted that, although I did go to black screen for a minute or two, I did not lose functionality of my desktop icons or task bar. The mouse roll over triggered the appropriate highlighting of the icons. The weird thing was my display configuration. The desktop screen appeared to be in the default display mode, rather than using my NVIDIA control panel options. I went into the CP and noted that although the Use NVIDIA Settings was ticked I was actually in the Other Applications Control Settings mode. I discovered this when I went to nudge the gama slider and the tic switched over to Other Applications. I corrected the tic and my screen popped back to my custom NVIDIA settings.

Seems like during system boot, there are random bits that are not integrating properly into the OS. Each day there are different anomalies, and some that are consistent like the memory leak. This points me back to Win10 and a borked update.

Interesting though.

I have a good friend who pointed me to a different version of Win10 that is more stable. I've resigned myself to a complete overhaul, but I'm going with the stable version and hopefully that will give me some time to do a bit of actual work. lol

For today and tomorrow, if I can keep the system stable and we don't have any power loss with the wind and storm, I'll putter along with projects that don't require Max or CS6. I've got a ton of autogen to do for KRNO. It's like a root canal...but at least the SDK is steady.

Just to keep this thing in perspective... P3DV3.4.9.18400 along with the current NVIDIA driver is performing the best I've ever seen. The sim is running at max, all the bells and whistles, ASN live weather at full saturation, over bone crushing 2X autogen saturation photo real HD scenery, in the F2A with it's high poly count and high res texturing. The sim never misses a beat, it's absolutely smooth with no of the OOMs or other typical sim related buggers. I usually lock FPS at 60 for smooth video capture, but if I let it go unlimited I'm seeing 60-80 FPS. I've never seen it perform like this over my high demand scenery.

It's the darndest thing.

 

[AussieMan]

Gordon,

Not sure what version of W10 you are using but I am using W10 Professional and I am finding it very stable.

 

[gman5250]

Gordon,

Not sure what version of W10 you are using but I am using W10 Professional and I am finding it very stable.

I'm running Professional. In some areas it's steady as a rock, but since this thing cropped up with Max after the last update it's just all over the place.
I really like the interface in Win10, and I want to be in a current platform. I'll see if the fresh install from disk will help.