Viewport and general performance between two machines

[theoG7GJE]

The specs are not a huge difference but one machine is running a project while another one can barely do interactive rendering.

Machine A - running 64GB RAM, i9900k CPU and RTX 3090

Machine B - running 64GB RAM, i910850k CPU and RTX 3070

Machine A barely work in the file, poor viewport performance, IPR with VRay will pretty much guarantee a crash without turning off several Forest Packs, let alone even use AXYZ Anima People.

Machine B does all the above 10x better, nothings hidden for IPR, Anima People are visible, viewport speed is incredibly fast in comparison.

Considering the difference in GPU and CPU, is it really that big a difference that one will be able to render and the other not? It doesn't seem that huge of a leap to cause issue.

Any ideas on what else could be hampering performance on Machine A? (both were running just the one instance of Max)

[denisrobinsonofficial]

When assessing viewport and overall performance, two machines can display distinct variations. Factors like processor speed, graphics capabilities, and memory influence how smoothly a system handles tasks, especially graphic-intensive ones. Machine A might offer seamless viewport navigation and swift multitasking due to its robust specifications. Meanwhile, Machine B could struggle with complex visuals and exhibit lag during demanding operations. It's crucial to consider these aspects to determine which machine aligns better with your performance requirements

[Diffus3d]

That reads like ChatGPT.   How's the power supply on the bad machine?   It sort of feels like a system issue, drivers, power, system settings, etc.  Have you tried benchmarking the bad machine?  

Best Regards,

[theoG7GJE]

As far as I know the Power Supply is all good, I dont have any blue screens or issues across the system.
It just seems to be in Max that it really suffers in comparison to the other and I wasn't sure if the CPU made that big of a difference to the stability of the project.

Machine A will chug and crash, consistently running out of RAM.
Machine B manages to keep the RAM usage stable.

I just thought on paper they look pretty similar but the performance differences are night and day.

I'll try running a couple of benchmarks on them both this weekend to see if it shows anything in particular and maybe a memtest for the RAM.

Checking drivers Machine A is more up to date but im also tempted to just wipe the system and see if that fixes it. I hate troubleshooting PCs 🙂

[Diffus3d]

Fair enough.  Sometimes it's something weird and small like leaving the SSD as sata in the bios instead of ahci.  

If you do troubleshoot, some more ideas:  

Are there performance issues with any other programs on that machine?  Could it be a driver issue?  Perhaps the game driver is installed on the 4090 instead of the production driver?  Is it running out of video ram or regular ram?

Maybe the m/b has onboard graphics and for some reason 3dsmax is seeing that instead of the 4090?  

Spec wise they seem pretty close to one another.  Running out of RAM on equal scenes is pretty strange though unless it's video ram.  

Best Regards,

[theoG7GJE]

I'll double check some of these.

It is the RAM rather than GPUs VRAM, which is what was the most confusing as I thought the usage should be almost the same, maybe a little bit of Windows usage not cleaning up memory might make a small difference.

[Diffus3d]

That is weird.  I wonder if one is using the windows paging file and perhaps the other isn't.  Is it possible that the slow machine has the RAM installed incorrectly?  Some motherboard need parity so plugging them in right next to each other is actually incorrect.  

Best Regards,

[theoG7GJE]

it was configured by SCAN and all slots are full in the motherboard, i believe its 4x16gb sticks, in both machines.

is there an easy way to monitor how both are dealing with the RAM when opening and rendering the project? I've just been watching through process manager monitor and the problematic machine will just run out of RAM and either VRay will fail the render with an embree tree failure or it will try to render and Max will just close due to errors.

[Diffus3d]

Perhaps that CPU doesn't fully support embree, or doesn't have all the right embree software installed.  You can disable embree in the f10 menu somewhere in there.  That will probably solve your issue, but perhaps render a bit slower.  

Best Regards,