3ds max 2017 directx shader crash

[jacek.jerzy.maj]

Hey guys,

i'm having an issue:

First the viewport freezes (the menus are fine) then after a short while max crashes. It happens when I'm using a directx shader (nothing fancy) on more than 3-4 objects.

I was working on the same scenes in max 2016 and everything was fine so i dont think this is the shaders issue. The more objects use the shader the quicker the freeze occurs. It also happens on the same objects using StandardFX11.fx shader.

This is a big problem for us as my team has just switched to max 2017 and we need to use custom shaders.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Thanks @jacek.jerzy.maj.  

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @jacek.jerzy.maj,

Just wanted to follow up, more stable without the view cube?

Best Regards,

[jacek.jerzy.maj]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis disabling the viewcube didnt help.

Any ideas as to what now? Have You maybe talked to someone in the code department?

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @jacek.jerzy.maj,

The problem is that your scene doesn't crash on any of the machines I've tested so it's working as intended as far as that goes.  I've tested on about seven machines of varying OS's and hardware types and I simply cannot repro the issue.  Is it only this one shader/scene where this happens?  Or does it happen for all DirectX shaders for you?  Does DXDIAG show anything in windows?  

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @jacek.jerzy.maj,

Update 1 released today and it addresses one of the buckets where you were getting crashes, can you please try it for me?  I still have your thread on !Important status on my Outlook tasks and I wanted to follow up.

Best Regards,

[jacek.jerzy.maj]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis thanks for the info. Where do i download the update?

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @jacek.jerzy.maj,

I have more information here.  For some users it's not in the Desktop App yet, but is on the manage.autodesk.com account page.  It gets rolled out in waves to avoid congestion on the desktop app, but still accessible on your account page regardless.  I hope this helps!

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have the same problem. After i use a directx shader, my whole system crash. I can only reproduce the problem on our win 10 systems. Update 1 was not helping.

Best regards

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

This is disappointing.  I'd like to verify that you are having this issue with the DirectX material and not the Directx11 viewport.  Is that correct?  If not, I'll go ahead and move this to a new thread, but if it's the same we might all compare notes here and see if we can narrow this down.

Would you be able to attach your event viewer logs so I can look for similarities?  Thanks for reporting this.  Max doesn't usually crash a whole computer, and when that happens it's almost always a hardware issue.  You and Jacek seem to have the same issue.  Can you both list your current hardware, let's look for similarities.  

Can you try installing these Directx Runtimes to see if any are missing?  Thank you.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hello @Alfred.DeFlaminis

yes I have the problem with the directx Material. I made a short movie where you can see the crash.  When I kill Max now, my whole system crash. Can you send me a link where I can upload my event logs and my .nfo?

Best Regards

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I see, thank you for the video.  Does that line up with what is happening to you @jacek.jerzy.maj?  If so, I think I have enough to log this as a bug.  When it's happening to more than 1 person and it's the same symptoms, that's enough for me to at least put it in the tracker to be looked closer at.  I appreciate you both taking all this time to communicate with me on this.  

@Anonymous, I have set up a private folder for you if you'd like to upload your files there. You should get an email about it shortly, and if you don't see it please check your SPAM folder. These files are private and will not be shared with anyone but yourself and the support staff. Please let me know if you have any questions. Please use at least an 8 character password or the Box account may not work properly.

Best Regards, 

[jacek.jerzy.maj]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis

pretty much the same way. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi @Alfred.DeFlaminis

I recived no E-Mail form you. Also not in my spam folder. Can you send me the invitation again?

Best Regards

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

The system actually doesn't allow me to send a second invite.  However I could send it to another email account.  If you PM me a different email account, I'd be happy to send it there.   Or, you can PM me a link to the file from WeTransfer or something like that.  

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I checked your logs, everything seems pretty fine in here for the most part.  Usually there is something worth noting but except for some Occulus errors this is a clean log.  The occulus service is crashing a bit, so the only thing I can suggest is making sure the Occulus isn't plugged in while working with Max and maybe try to disable the service and see if it helps. 

I've had a poster recently who mentioned that a bug was found with the NVIDIA drivers and texture loading that can cause the graphics cards to be virtually 'unplugged'.  Do either of you ever have an error in Windows that says something like "This device has stopped functioning and has been reset".  (Paraphrasing.)  It may be that there is an actual driver issue with the cards right now.  That's not to say there aren't any nitrous bugs, there are.  

I have about 5 threads that are just like this one.  In each of them the cards that are at the heart of the issue are 10X0 and Titan cards.  All by NVIDIA.  I'm going to keep looking into this but so far I've been unable to resolve Jacek's issue and he's tried literally everything under the sun.  (Kudos Jacek.)  

There are two notes I do want to follow up on in my bug tracking cases for DirectX.  Can you both answer the following questions for me, please?

1) Are you in Edit Mesh or Edit Poly mode when this happens?  

2) Are you both using the slate editor when this happens?  Does it also happen with the old mat editor?

I'll add the info to the bug tracking cases.  @Anonymous if you'd like me to test your file I can do that.  I've reached out to IT and they showed me a way to embed a widget into a message so you can upload files to the private folder even if you didn't get the invite email somehow.  Please let me know.  If you'd like I can record a video of me going through the scene.  Jacek, I'd be happy to do the same for you.  

Best Regards,

[istan]

Up to Max2016 no problems with Nitrous.

Max2017 simply does not neither work with Nitrous11 nor Nitrous9 with NVidia cards.

I tested three different systems with three different VGA cards.

Max2017 works only stable with OGL or DirectX - and this is what I tell my customers.

If they demand Nitrous, they have to use Max2016.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @istan,

This is about DirectX shaders materials, are you talking general nitrous feedback here?  Or are you finding that you cannot have DirectX shaders in your viewport? 

Best Regards,

[istan]

I just wanted to point out, that Nitrous in the viewport in general in Max2017 causes crashes.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Thank you @istan for the updated information.  

Unfortunately this thread is about the directx shaders specifically, if you'd like I can move the past couple posts out to a new thread and we can go deeper into your issue regarding Nitrous.  Poor Jacek has seen this happen a few times in this thread already and I don't want to bother him with issues that aren't related to his.  He gets an email for every post and if they are unrelated we're basically spamming his inbox.  

Many of these viewport problems are related to hardware drivers or problems with hardware in Windows 10.

Best Regards,

[jacek.jerzy.maj]

hey guys, just a quick update:

i'm on the latest nvidia drivers: 376.33 and latest max 2017.1

and max still crashes.

Was there any development on the reported bug?

Cheers and all best in the new year.