VFB lags

[mh]

Hello

I've just updated to 3ds Max 2018 and all of sudden getting viewport performance issues. 3ds Max itself is fine and works well, and so does the Corona VFB — until I hit render, then everything drops to what feels like 5fps. It affects moving the render region and also just panning the frame buffer itself, everything is super slow. It affects Corona VFB only, the rest of max seems to work ok (ie I can move the whole VFB window around somewhat easily whilst rendering).

The weird thing is that this was absolutely fine until yesterday when I updated to 3ds Max 2018. This is the only thing that's changed, no Windows Updates etc. Previously 2016 was working flawlessly but now has the same issue as 2018. It only really happens when rendering, i.e. it works ok even during parsing and GI compute, but once it starts rendering the frame rate just massively drops. I don't think it's a performance issue as I have plenty of RAM left (the scene is using about 4GB, I have 112GB left). Limiting the CPU affinity (in both Task Manager and in Corona system settings) doesn't help at all, neither does low priority etc.

I've tried reinstalling Corona from scratch but that didn't help.

2970WX and 1070 Ti, Windows 10 Pro, latest GPU drivers

latest Corona, 3ds Max 2018.4

Any suggestions? pls help

EDIT: forgot to mention that the render itself seems to be going ok and it's fast, it's just the display that is affected

[Ryuu]

Hi, does this happen only in certain scenes, or is it scene independent (e.g. happens even in a new scene with a single light and one teapot)? Do you have any other 3rd party plugins installed in 3ds Max 2018 besides Corona? Do you experience the poor viewport performance in interactive or production rendering, or both?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but all of these might help us to pinpoint the problems :)

[Nejc Kilar]

Hmm, does working with the IR kind of makes the viewport go bananas slow as well? Slow as in stuttery, sometimes not even registering all the mouse clicks?

Here is what I'm seeing going from 3ds Max 2017 to 2020 -> https://www.dropbox.com/s/kmh3vkienmijdph/3dsmax2017and2020.mov?dl=0

3ds Max 2017 works like buttter, 2020 like crap for some reason. I tested 2019 as well and it also works bad. As far as Cinema 4D goes, no matter which version I roll back to it is always an incredible stutter fest.

That being said, one thing that helps is disabling roughly 50% of the cores / threads in my system. So going from 72 threads to 36 threads helps. Lately I just have HyperThreading (SMT if you are on AMD) disabled altogether which nets a -30ish percent rendering performance drop but C4D and 3ds Max work fine then. This is the only way I can work effectively.

edit:
Here is C4D running on 72 threads with the VFB acting like its running with 2 FPS -> https://www.dropbox.com/s/4az69a2ehta32kh/Threading%20Issues.flv?dl=0

Not sure whats at play here :D

[rowmanns]

Hi,

For 3ds Max and C4D we have an even newer version of Corona. Corona 4 HF1, and we are currently in the release candidate phase of Corona 5 for 3ds MX.

These can be downloaded from: https://corona-renderer.com/download and Daily Builds Downloads

Secondly, would you be able to send over your scene and we will see if we can reproduce the behaviour here?

Thanks,

Rowan

[Nejc Kilar]

Hi,

For 3ds Max and C4D we have an even newer version of Corona. Corona 4 HF1, and we are currently in the release candidate phase of Corona 5 for 3ds MX.

These can be downloaded from: https://corona-renderer.com/download and Daily Builds Downloads

Secondly, would you be able to send over your scene and we will see if we can reproduce the behaviour here?

Thanks,

Rowan

I would suppose this is directed at me since the OP is using the latest Corona version? If so... My recordings are old because I've had this issue for a couple of years now. I am now running all the latest dailies and its still the same. I also switched Windows, updated the BIOS, disabled control flow, messed with Windows priorities etc... To no avail :\

It most definitely isn't scene dependent. It is CPU usage dependent, heh.

[iancamarillo]

I've had to uncheck "show window contents while dragging" in performance options in windows. might help

[mh]

Hi guys

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think it's Windows performance issue as everything else is running smoothly.

It seems to be scene independent - it happens on both current project file, a blank new scene (even without any objects) and on old files that were previously fine. I am running Corona 4 HF1, I can't switch to 5RC yet as I am in full production mode right now and rely of render farms. I have the usual set of plugins (Forest Pack, RailClone, floor generator etc) but it happens irrelevant to the fact if they are in the scene or not. And it happens in both IR and production render.

The issue is a bit similar to what nkilar has posted, though it seems even more obvious in my case. But the weird thing is that it definitely happened after installing 3ds Max 2018 and it propagated itself to 2016 as well, which was previously running ok (on Monday). Is there something being installed with the 3ds Max installation that might have caused this, and might be worth trying to reinstall/update?

[rowmanns]

Hi,

Can you make sure that your windows version is fully updated?

Thanks,

Rowan

[mh]

Hello,

yep it is.

[mh]

no ideas?

[maru]

So the main issue here is massive performance drop when CPU is under stress - right?
This ONLY happens when CPU is under stress, so if you are NOT rendering, the performance is fine - right?
Does it happen ONLY with Corona? Can you try with V-Ray and its IR, or some other renderer?

Do you have all drivers and BIOS updated?
Are you monitoring temperatures?
Can you list your full system specs? (e.g. what frequency RAM you have)

[mh]

Actually I just managed to fix this it seems - it looks like the Ryzen Master was the cause! I had it installed though I haven't changed any settings, but as soon as I uninstalled it the UI is back to normal and as fast as it ever was

I will keep monitoring this but it looks promising