It's a well known issue - the
System Requirements for Max clearly states that DX9.0c is required.
Had you mentioned DX10 early on we could have told you to revert to DX9 and saved you 4 days of frustration.
This is why we ask all members to to put their software version and (brief) system specs is their signatures so the details are immediately visible to anyone responding.
We see Vista or Win7 and immediately know that trying to use DX10 is a possibility.
Max 2016 (SP1/EXT1)
Win7Pro x64 (SP1). i5-3570K @ 4.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX11.
nVidia GTX760 (2GB) (Driver 430.86).