3DS MAX high cpu high disk usage

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I used to use 3ds max in 2010 if i remember right (not at home tho) and it worked flawlessly, so now that i need 3d modelling software for my own use, i decided to try newest version first before i even think about buying it. So i downloaded the free trial and it installed without problems, but when i start 3ds max.. thats when the problem starts.

So my problem is this. When 3ds max in on, it uses about 40% of my whole cpu (one core is 100% and three others are 10-30%). I could live with this problem for now, but when i start rendering it would be a nightmare. Worst problem is that when 3ds max is on, it uses my hdd for about 40mb/s. Task manager says name of that process that uses hdd is "system", but if i start my 3ds max now, the problem starts, and when i stop it, the problem stops. I have done this "test" plenty of times, so it have to somehow connected to 3ds max. Oh, and its not becouse i have so much stuff in my 3ds max, the problem starts when i start 3ds max in EMPTY screen. (i havent done anything yet with it).

I have also tried reinstalling it couple of times, it didnt change anything.

My cpu is i5-4670k and hdd in question is OCZ vertex 3 120gb SSD. Both are working without problems, i can play many high-end games without problems and i can render videos without problems also. So i dont think problem lies there.

Anybody have any tips for this problem? i could live with this, but i dont think its supposed to work like this, so better to try and get it working properly.

[darawork]

Hi,

I have a quadcore cpu too, and when 3DSMax Design 2015 (SP1) is open and idling it uses 0 - 2% cpu on all cores. Standard SATA HDD is not spinning up either. So I'd say it's safe to say that it is your PC operation system that is causing the activity.

There was always a rule I followed when using high end software, either for 3D work or Music production: Have a clean computer, or seperate slimmed down seperate OS boot partition at least. Having games on the same drive, would always somehow mess with the demanding apps. These apps are designed from the ground up with solidity in mind, coded by teams of programmers to try and sit well with operating system programmers code, hardware manufacturers code... etc.... throwing another big application like a modern high-demand game into the already rats-nest like pool of code was always asking for trouble. Clashing drivers, bits of .net code, C++ runtime extensions, patched hotfixes, beta trials, partially uninstalled Norton security suites.... boom.

Perhaps it is time for your PC to get a factory reset lobotomy? Just a thought. That way you could dual boot. One windows installation for games, another for serious work. 😉

[lightcube]

I've not got these issues either.

That being said, I primarily build tools and assets for games. As such, I could never imagine having to dual boot into different OSs between Max and games. That could turn into: Make Asset; reboot; test in game; reboot; edit in Max; reboot; test in game; reboot... etc etc.

I think that the general rule is just being prudent when installing software. The hard part is getting people to understand intuitively what that means.

[Anonymous]

This is hard to debug with the information given.

Graphics-card,Ram and OS would be important.

And like already said: Don`t use your Gaming-Pc for working with a high-end DCC application.

You will get into all kind of troubles with that.

[Steve_Curley]

Except that many of us can't afford many thousands on a true "workstation" and we need Max and games to coexist. If you can afford one, and your work requires it - fine - if not then we have to make do. That said - I have no such issues and mine is definitely a "gaming rig" (and the only PC I have capable of running Max2015).

[Anonymous]

I highly doubt its my pc.

Well i do have a clean computer. I formatted my comp less than week ago (installed new gpu, so i decided to format, i know its not needed but i wanted to anyways). I also have other "backup windows" installed, it had nothing installed (it was BACKUP, so i didnt want to install anything yet, point of it was to get to somekind of windows where i could make say, usb with windows, ETC if i ever needed it). I tried in my backup windows, same problem occured. I even installed new windows (my old win 7 64bit) to one of my hard drives, still same problem occurs.

I also tried 3ds max at friends house, his computer is kinda similar to mine. We have same same cpu (4670k) and same amout if ram (8gb)  and while i have amd 290x, he has nvidia 780. So in power our comps are kinda similar and both has alot of power. We both also have windows 8.1 64bit.

In his computer we had exactly same problem as i had (we downloaded it again at his place, so it was different install file also).

When i got back home i tried with my old amd 6870 gpu, just to make sure it wasnt gpu problem, and still same problem occured. I even tried multiple different drivers, no effect.

I have never had any problems with using same computer for work and for playing. I have worked with computers my whole life, so my comp is in good condition inside and out.

[darawork]

Ok, sorry for doubting your PC hygiene regime. You've obviously tried very hard to get this working, on numerous PCs and OS's. At this point I have probably come to an end of my uselessness. It's just strange the way it's not happening to other people.

[darawork]

Same here Steve, this PC would probably play a few nice games at near-full level of detail settings... and it's the only PC I have that would. But installing anything besides 3D software on it, here in work, would likely be comparative to me signing my own death warrant.

[Anonymous]

No worries, we are all "strangers" here so we dont know who we are talking to 🙂
This problem is strange indeed. Only thing that is same for my friend and me is our cpu. So could there be somekind of problem with 3ds max and i5-4670k? Thats pretty much only thing i can think of right now. I do have my old amd 1100T behind me at my shelf, so i could test it out later on.

[darawork]

Stranger things have been know to happen with 2015, I probably wouldn't be surprised if it was something like that. 🙂

That chip seems to work ok with 2014 though, bottom of page: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-4670k-4670-4570-4430_6.html

[Steve_Curley]

---

@darawork wrote:

Same here Steve, this PC would probably play a few nice games at near-full level of detail settings... and it's the only PC I have that would. But installing anything besides 3D software on it, here in work, would likely be comparative to me signing my own death warrant.

---

One of the benefits of being self employed i.e. lazy 😄

[Anonymous]

What about Antivirus software or something similar that interferes with 3dsmax?

Or a windows background service?

[darawork]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg

[Steve_Curley]

ROFL - Though I should warn (younger members) that the video does contain "adult language" (definitely an 18+ rating ;)).

[Anonymous]

If i would have only tried it with one windows with one antivirus, then sure, that could be the reason. But since i have tried with even CLEAN windows(installed new windows just for this), meaning without any antivirus (and windows crap disabled) i doubt it could be the reason. Same goes for windows background services. Since i tried with my "new" windows 8.1, clean 8.1 and clean win 7. Again i doubt it could be the reason.

[Steve_Curley]

It's something other than Max itself. I checked this right after first boot this morning. Loaded nothing but Max2015, Task Manager and from there Process Monitor (Win7Pro). After initial load Max wasn't touching CPU at all (just an empty scene), or touching the HDD, or increasing its memory usage. And I sat and watched it for some time. I do have f/wall and AV running, plus whatever services I can't safely get rid of.
Here's a guess for you. DotNet. Jumping from Max2010 to Max2015 would require a newer .net - and it has to compile itself after it is installed. It will churn like crazy until it's done. Find the service/process which is doing it, google it and you'll find the instructions for running it manually, which will kill the machine for a while, but once it's done it shouldn't interfere again.
I had to do that (but I can't remember the instructions) as I installed 4 releases one after the other (2012 through 2015) and the PC was on a go-slow because of it.

[edit] Found it - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/08/06/wondering-why-mscorsvw-exe-has-high-cpu-usage-you-... [/edit]

[Anonymous]

I think you misunderstood me when i said i used to use 2010. I ment i used it in 2010 (as in year, not the version of the software, altho it might have also been the version). I have never had any version installed at home before i installed this 2015 version i did.
I have newest dotnet installed (dont it come with the windows updates?), also i cant remember if 3ds max installed it when i installed 3ds max. So i should have the right version for it.
Finding the service/process is hard. Since 3ds max is the one using cpu and system is the one using hdd. Dont have the time now to look into it further, altho i'm not even sure as of right now how i could even look further what actually is using hdd under the "system".

But funny thing.
I went to bios earlier today for other reasons, and since i have had noctua cooler for a long time now, i decided to do little OC for my cpu.
After disabling some useless services, i decided to try again if 3ds max would now work properly. It wont, BUT, he is the change. After the OC, it wont use 100% of any core anymore. Only using 80% of one core and about 20% of other three.
I decided to take my OC away and test it again, and it one core went back to 100% and three others went 10-30%. So to me it seems like 3ds max can only use specific amount of power from cpu, or why else would it only use 80% of that one core when it is overclocker?
And to make sure its not my cpu, i tested it out and my cpu can go 100% while overclocked, so again, its only 3ds max that wont do that.

[Anonymous]

I thought i should update this a little.

Friend of mine who knew about my problems asked me if i thought about buying new cpu since thats where i thought the problem were. I said no, but he jokingly said to me that i should sell me computer to him and buy new for myself, i laughed at first. But then i started to think about it. He needed new computer anyways, so my options were to sold just my cpu to him or sold my whole computer to him. We talked about it i sold it to him fair price, about 70% of what retail would have been (considering that 290x was less than week old, i sold it very cheap, but i have known him for my whole life so its ok).

So i decided to buy new computer myself. I bought i7 4770k (better rendering, since that is what i will be doing), asus maximus VII hero motherboard, asus geforce 780TI, and two different ssd drives, one was intel and other was OCZ again (both are 240gb  if i remember correctly) and 16gb of memory.

Reason for two different drives were that i have my own "work drive" and "play drive". I also bought new windows for my work drive, i got win 8 pro 64bit OEM very cheap, only 50 euros. They had only two left and wanted to get rid of them 🙂 (i also bought new soundcard but they had do order it, it was asus xonar something. come on, who would play with motherboards soundcard? 🙂 )

So only thing i didnt change on my computer was power and case. After installing both windowses and updating drivers ETC, i decided to give it a go and try 3ds max again.

Same exact problem occured. That problem occures in both ssd drives also, and both have different version of windows.

So now i know its wasnt my 4670k, so now its something else.

Anyone have any clue what it could be?

Even if i cant get this to work, i didnt upgrade my computer for nothing, since i will be doing rendering and 3d stuff regardless, just with different programs. I just really really want to use this, i have so many good memories from 2010.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Well, i think i found the reason for my problem.

For some reason my 3ds max was blocker from connecting to internet (i dont remember doing so and my firewall is set to ask me everytime). After i deleted that rule and started my 3ds max, it asked for permission to connect somewhere and then the problem was gone.

So i decided to test it out, i changed its permission to block, and problem appeared again. I allowed it to connect and the problem was gone. I decided to restart my computer, just to make sure it wasnt my windows just acting up,  and then i made those tests again. Everytime it was set to block, that problem appeared and when it was set to allow, that problem was gone.

So okay, now i can use 3ds max without that annoying problem and i'm thinking of buying this, i really like it.

But.. there is always a but 🙂

I'm just wondering why that problem occured at my friends computer or in my freshly installed wiindows without firewall (i always disable windows firewall, i hate it).

I decided to do some more testing with my new "test windows" that i installed just for this test. (i knew someday that extra 60gb partition would come handy 🙂 ). After i install windows and all the windows updates, problem is there. after i disable windows firewall, problem is still there.  After i disable so many useless services and programs, problem is still there. And thats where i am now, and my question is.. what in the world is blocking 3ds max from connecting? I think that the same answer will also answer this question: what made my firewall to block this in the first place (in my normal windows i mean).

There are so many questions that could lead to more problems that makes me wonder if 3ds max is the right problam for me.

As much as i like 3ds max, it kinda rubs me the wrong way. Something just dont feel right.

[Anonymous]

More importantly you should question why i and the majority of 3dsmax users here don`t see this problem.

So no matter how you try to twist and turn it: It must be your setup and not 3dsmax.

Btw, this is how it looks like on my system: