Maya 2018.2 spikes in viewport fps performance

[Anonymous]

Hello. My rig is intel core i7 4770, Geforce 770 gtx and 6 GB of ram and I have terrible viewport performance in Maya 2018 in windows 7

. Mostly it's 125 fps, but when I try to pen or rotate it goes below 10 fps and than goes back to 125. I tested this with only one polygonal cube in the viewport. For comparison, I tested the same way 3ds max 2015 and it is well above 300 fps, runs like a beast and never goes down. Has anyone else also experienced these strange spikes and drops in fps ? And what can I do to eliminate them.

[mspeer]

Hi!

1. Make sure the right GPU is used (disable onboard GPU for your system)

2. Update graphic card drivers.
3. Try different Viewport modes (like DirectX).

[Anonymous]

Thank you for answer. IT was anti aliasing and SSAO. I turned them off and lag is gone. But still I attribute this to maya poor performance. I have powerful enough graphics card not to have lag on a single cube.

[mspeer]

Hi!

Based in your screen resolution (?) your GPU may not be enough to have all this features on without a significant performance drop.

[Anonymous]

My resolution is 1920x1080, but problem is not in resolution. 3ds max is pushing 380 fps on same resolution with the same hardware. The problem is not even lower fps in maya, if it was stable 125 fps it would be ok for me, but with anti aliasing and/or ssao turned on fps starts to have significant drops and these spikes happen only when i start to pen or rotate my viewport, last for less than a second, but still spoil the experience. If these drops were due to weak hardware, I guess fps drop would be permanent and not occasional. That's why I wanted to know if I am the only one who experiences these problems, cause if so, than I guess it's time to repair or completely reinstall my operation system.

[Anonymous]

It's not Maya's fault. Maybe it's what you ate last night. Maybe you forgot to walk your dog. It's never Maya's fault.

[mspeer]

Hi!

1. What do you mean with "for less than a second"?

Framerate drops for less than a second?

2. If a feature is not fully supported by hardware your display performance will decrease by a huge amount.

(Please test AO and AA separately)

3. Even a lower end card should be able to get a high framerate  of at least 60 fps (based on monitor refresh rate) with both features enabled for a HD display with simple geometry only (if both features are supported by the GPU).

[Anonymous]

Buy Maya insurance.

It can help a little when you run out of workarounds.

[Anonymous]

Hi. I will try to explain.  I hold alt button on a keyboard and than push middle mouse button to pen. Every time I push middle mouse button and move mouse, the response on the screen is not immediate. The movement begins with a small delay. So I turned on FPS on the screen and found out that it drops to 6-10 fps every time I click middle mouse button and move mouse and than instantly goes back to normal. The same happens when I rotate the viewport, Not that this prevents me from doing my job, just was curious why that happens.

I tested with ssao and AA separately and it's clear that ssao contributes more to generate this strange lag.

[mspeer]

Hi!

The fps computation/display in Maya is general paused and starts with movement (or playback) so the first displayed value can be much smaller than the "real" value.

But I can't confirm the initial delay/response of the Viewport (with my hardware).

Please check GPU Energy mode (set to max) and other settings of your GPU driver.

[Anonymous]

Well, maybe it's because of a driver, or I need a better gpu. Anyway, The problem is gone when turn off ssao and anti aliasing, so it's not that annoying after all. Thank you for help.

[Anonymous]

Maybe you need a better 3D program.

[Anonymous]

Maybe Maya IS the better 3D program for me.

[s.thifault]

I have the same problem as you, but with 1080 GTX, no lag in Houdini with the same model with Anti-aliasing on.

It drives me crazy so I turn it off, 

[laurence.cymet]

Hello.  Do you have "tumble on object" enabled in your tumble tool settings?  You can check with: Viewport/view/camera tools/tumble tool - option box. This is a known issue we are looking into, but disabling that option should get you back your performance.    

Also are you noticing a lag that goes with your drop in the FPS HUD counter?  The hud may not always be indicative of your actual performance as VP2 will stop drawing when idle - so the FPS goes down.  

SSAO and MSAA (anti aliasing) will slow your performance depending on how big your viewport is - but if you are using 2018.2 this should have improved quite a bit. The other thing you can try is going into your Viewport 2.0 settings and disabling "Floating Point Render Target" as this will increase the memory required by several of teh Viewport FX like anti-aliasing. 

Thanks,

Laurence Cymet 

[s.thifault]

Thanks for your quick answer, but it’s not working.
Did some testing...if I use the Track tool, then there is no delay. But if I have the select tool and use the middle mouse button to pan, there is a slight delay for the track tool to move the scene. You have the delay only if the select tool is active and use regular Maya style navigation (alt + mouse) It’s small but it’s annoying enough to turn off anti-aliasing.

Thanks!

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I’m surprised I didn’t find this thread sooner, as I posted an issue about this over a year ago and then found the solution.

If you’re using an NVIDIA graphics card, there’s an issue with power usage in the driver control panel. Make a profile for Maya, then change the Power setting from Optimal (or Adaptive) to Prefer Maximum Performance. This setting is the one that causes the random up/down frame rate spikes as there is probably something happening internally between the driver and Maya with card states. This solution has worked across OS’s and multiple systems for me. Also make sure your dedicated GPU is selected for Maya.

Cheers
Mike

[s.thifault]

Thanks so much, nice trick! it’s much better now.

[laurence.cymet]

Thanks for sharing this!  We have our QA department looking into this issue as that shouldn't have to be the case. I'm happy there's a work-around though.  

[s.thifault]

After some more testing and loading up some big scenes , It's working perfectly !, now I can use AA ! very happy!

Thanks Mike!