objects invisible in viewport.

[jstee56]

hi guys, 

this is my first post to the forums, i downloaded and installed 3dsmax 2015 yesterday.

Whenever I make an object in the program it is wireframe and when deselected it is invisible but still selectable, when rendered it shows up prefectly though.

I have tried to reinstall, restart my computer, pressing f3, making sure its properties are fine.

I have tried googling for solutions, but i could not find a single thing about it. I am a uni student and need the program to finish an assessment.

thanks for your help

[Steve_Curley]

System specs? First thing is to make certain your PC meets the System Requirements for running Max.

[jstee56]

i have an acer aspire v3-771. 32gb ram, 2gb nvidia graphics card, 64bit intel core i7-3630qm cpu @ 2.4GHz , 127 gb ssd, 1tb hhd. i dont think its a specs problem.

[Steve_Curley]

1) Bottom of the Max window, next to "Add Time Tag" is a button (depressed in your image), try clicking that.
2) Open the Layer Manager, select the default layer, right-click it > Properties. Top-Right of the dialog, check the Display drop-down. Does it say Wireframe?
3) Max or Max Design? Related to (2), Design defaults to having objects inherit the Layer Properties, Max (non-design) doesn't. This can be changed:- Customise > Preferences > General tab > Layer Defaults section > Default to By Layer for New Nodes.

[jstee56]

im using 3ds max 2015 not design. none of those options seemed to work, ill try uninstalling and redownlaoding the whole thing again see if that works.

[Steve_Curley]

Before you do that try clearing your user settings.
Close Max, rename your ENU folder, restart Max and test.
C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\[max version]\ENU - note that AppData is a hidden folder so set Explorer to "Show hidden files and folders".

If you do redownload, use the "browser download" option (if available) - saves having to keep downloading in order to reinstall.

[jstee56]

reinstalling did not fix the problem.

[Steve_Curley]

Re-Installing does NOT overwrite the settings, so try renaming that folder. If it still doesn't work create a scene with a couple of objects, save it, Zip it and attach it to a reply so we can take a look.

[jstee56]

renaming the folder didnt seem to be effective. attached is a scene i made

[Steve_Curley]

It's your system showhow - the scene opens perfectly here. Exactly which nVidia card do you have? Have you tried newer (or older) drivers for it? There's nothing in the scene itself to account for it being locked into wireframe.

[jstee56]

my graphics card is nvidia gforce gt 640m. i tried updating drivers but it determined that it is up to date.
i went into the nvidia card settings and applied nvidia high performance processor onto 3ds max. it looks like it defaulted to intergrated onboard proccessor. this fixed the problem. thank you so much for your help.

[Steve_Curley]

That would explain it. Glad you found the problem 🙂