Multiple 3ds Max instances open + Saving = Lag

[DGTLTWNS]

Hi,

I have a few reports of people with 3ds Max 2020, 2022, 2023 (haven't tested 2021) slowing down our workstations, when multiple instances of 3ds Max are open and (auto)saving.

I have recorded a video of this here: https://youtu.be/zzsiOCMhHr8

First part of the video is me saving with only one instance open. Second part (00:18) is with a second file open in another instance. As you can see my workstation grinds to a halt and my cursor is barely moving. It seems I'm not the only one. This started happening a couple of months ago. Maybe a Windows update caused this or something. I looked at my Windows 10 update history in the last half year and most of them are .NET updates.

Can people with the same experience confirm, and could Autodesk investigate this please, because this is super annoying.

Thank you.

[DGTLTWNS]

I've looked at all the release notes and didn't find any updates on this issue. I've installed all the same plugins and scripts, so no difference there. Guess we'll never know but fingers crossed it stays stable.

[DGTLTWNS]

Well, it didn't take long for the lag to come back. I had my first crash because I opened the material editor (amazing) and now it's back to the old lag behavior with multiple instances open. Fantastic, wasted half a day getting Max 2023 operational. What a **** show really.

[RobH2]

Oh no. There has to be someting common to all of your systems that's causing this. It doesn't seem to be widespread even as there a number of people in this post reporting it. But 1000s of users are not seeing this behavior. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with your computers. It just means something is causing a conflict. 

Do you use any software that allows you to manage the processes a program uses on your CPU?

[DGTLTWNS]

No I don't. The only common denominator is the Threadrippers as ADSK suggested themselves. But it's just plain weird that before the crash I didn't have this issue. I give up honestly.

[RobH2]

Yea, it could be something in the Threadripper kernel. Not a happy thing. I have a Ryzen 9 which I don't think is considered a Threadripper. But, I am AMD and no issue like yours.

The reason I asked about a process manager is that I use one called Lasso. And I had excluded Max from process 0 and 31 to leave two processes available for OS background tasks. It gave me better machine interaction when Max was cranking on somehting. However, I was having terrible lag with an IPR render going. I found an obscure post that said Max needs to be able to use the first processor to function properly. So I set Max back to using process 0 and process 31 and excluded it from a couple in the middle. Now my IPR is smooth as glass again. It took me a year, no kidding, to find that post and solve my issue. Just by fate, I had excluded the worst two processes I could have, but had no idea what I had done was so bad. I just choose two processes willy nilly. Well, not completely without forethought, I just didn't know that process 0 was so important, I thought they were all the same and that I could just pick any of them. 

[gandhics]

I actually have asked some friend who has TR 1 gen, 2 gen, 3 gen. All of them said they don't have this ssue. So, I don't think TR is the problem. But, I still think it could be somewhat related.

Also, there is conflicted report about which version is causing this which is pretty important information.

I also curious about what is causing this. But, so far I don't think we have enough clue.

[kyronLNJPB]

Interesting that you had this behaviour in 2022. Our team had no issues on the previous version of Max and this problem reared its head when we installed 2023. Also interesting that a fresh install of 2023 was free of the issue for the first run at least. It's a real head scratcher. We're pretty diligent on having the lastest of everything installed and no service packs or plugin updates have improved anything since release.

We just use the industry standard plugins:
Vray
Forest Pack Pro
Railclone
Anima

Its so hard to test without any of these as every scene in the studio uses them. All I know is that everything was great until we upgraded to 2023 and if we don't want our entire PC's to freeze for mins at a time we can only use one Max instance at a time.

[Diffus3d]

TR 3 here with Vray, Forest Pack, and Railclone.  No problems.  

Crashing from opening the material editor seems like a permissions issue or something.  Are you running as admin when this happens?  

Our of curiosity, do your event viewer logs show any errors or warnings?

Best Regards,

[redtroll]

Same problem TR3970x, max 2023.1-3 + vray

it's 1000x worse on Win11 than win10, it's not only saving but opening 2nd or 3nd instance of max.

I was happy with amd threadripper for long time, no problems.

I think it's related to vray 6? because weird max behaviour started happening when I updated to vray 6 from 3.xx. But then meantime I also updated max, nvidia drivers....

[ArcHouse43]

Wow, I thought I was the only one experiencing this issue as I had failed to find any results on Google. I have had this issue for the last 8 months now and it is killing my workflow and productivity. I experience slow downs and lag when opening a file, saving a file and during rendering. 

I am on 3DsMax 2021 and have a amd threadripper 3970x and 128 GB RAM! I should be able to land a spacecraft on The Moon let alone have multiple Max Files open and successfully save one of them without encountering a slow down and lag issues. Has anyone found any solutions as of yet?

I am starting to think it may be a conflict with VRay 6 but I need to investigate further.

[RobH2]

I continued this conversation with the forum at Chaos Group and Lele there said it is definitively an Autodesk issue. So, no traction there. For me, I originally had no issue and mentioned that in previous posts. Then I began to experience the severe lag with IPR running, even if scaled down really small. That never used to be a problem, so something has happened. 

Here's my Chaos Group thread if you want to read it and even post so that they know it's just not me. They say they are aware of the complaints but can't reproduce it so are throwning the ball back to Autodesk as the culprit. Who knows?  

https://forums.chaos.com/forum/chaos-common/chaos-common-public/1173357-multiple-progressive-ipr-iss...

[Diffus3d]

In that case, the only path forward is for someone experiencing the issue to submit a support ticket at the manage.autodesk.com support area.  Include all the information such as the link to this thread, the chaosgroup thread, and any scenes that can produce the issue. 

The key here is to submit the ticket.  Looks like you all have gathered enough info to make it easier to find an issue if there is one.

Best Regards,

[darawork]

Hi, 

I've had bottlenecks too recently when saving multiple scenes. Sometimes recently we've walked into the office to restarted Workstations. There's a lot of people spamming DOS, denial of Service bot farms. Apparently 70% of the Internet is spam. Sometimes things run slow. Windows 11 is especially horrible.

Maybe try to pull out your network cable, for a test, then try to save?

I used to have to do that in earier versions of Autocad, where there were memory cycle leaks, ADSK processes calling home all the time, constant network pinging back and forth, it ended up slowing everything down, and on an already barely supported CPU, that's bound to hurt.

Regards, 

[DGTLTWNS]

This has been reported to Autodesk by me already and the case has been forwarded to the devs. Haven't heard back since a good couple of months and the ticket closes automatically when it's forwarded to the devs. Nice, being kept in the loop,...

The answer was basically it's AMDs fault and you need to disable hyperthreading. Which I did (just to test because why would I pay 5K for a CPU that I can use only half of) and it didn't make a difference. 

Recently I updated my BIOS drivers, and I have the impression it made everything worse. I was considering switching to windows 11 but I've heard too many people complain about the same things. So why bother. 

I have the impression that lately I'm seeing a lot of complaints about slow downs, stuttering, lagging, on all sorts of systems. I think driver stability has got a lot to do with this and it's not getting any better.

[info2V35E]

That has been done by at least two of us and the suggestions have been
total resinstalls (who's got time for that?) or to disable hyper threading
which is even more ridiculous a suggestion.

[RobH2]

I don't think it's an installation corruption issue. I think it's far deeper than that and that's it's most likely an incompatability with the AMD processors we are using. Unfortunately, if that's true, the fix is not likey to come and we'll have to live with it till we upgrade to some future AMD (if we still trust them and don't go back to Intel) processor. 

[ArcHouse43]

I am actually unable to run my business with this issue now, after 10 years I've never had a problem this severe. I am unable to work on more than one Max file at a time, everything grinds to a halt.

Is the alternative to rip out this processor and install a new one? Would anyone have any recommendations for a processor?

[darawork]

Hi, 

Personally I'd choose some fast Xeon, but I should not have to suggest that. 

Regards, 

[gandhics]

For actual work, fast single core is the best.

13900X should be at least 2x faster than any dual xeon on the market.

You can even buy 2-3 with same price and distribute render.

[jai]

Yeah its still destroying my sanity every single day. I've had to buy smartrefs just to be able to run things in one max instance and still be able to manipulate the objects in those xrefs.

It's all about CPU though. Why it was fine last Max version and a total hair puller in 2023 is something for Autodesk to answer. We can't all upgrade our machines just so the UI in one single program is fixed. If I have 2 max instances open and the 2nd one ever autosaves, my entire PC stutters and is unusable until its finished.

Same with background rendering, even with half the cores set to off I can barely move my mouse around the screen and task manager can take 5mins to even open and populate the list of running programs.

I have a Ryzen threadripper 3960X. Anecdotally 2 of the new machines in our studio are Ryzen 5950X's and those guys say they have no lag in Max. The 5950X's have much faster single thread CPU's than the 3960X.
Too bad for the rest of us.