Max 2021.3 SME material preview update takes longer time

[Bormax]

Hi,

I guess in this case it would be best to contact autodesk and see if they can provide some assistance: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/contact-support

I'm sorry I can't provide any useful solution for this :/

Rowan

Ok, thank you Rowan.

[Bormax]

2021.3 has some quick fixes for Slate performance which was introduced without info & testing... so you could roll back to 2021.2 and see if it happens there. If not, then the new 'fix' in 2021.3 is the culprit - in that case, report to Autodesk.

Could you share the scene with me privately? Only the problematic asset...

Hi Pokoy. Thanks for your interest to this issue.
I found out that it's easy to reproduce this issue even with boxes. Here I attached the box version of the scene with this problem.

Multi/Sub-object material with 60 sub-materials assigned to the massive of 5000 instanced boxes. Corona material assigned to the unique box. Try to change something in that Corona material and see how much time it will take to get material update complete. On my computer it takes about 6 sec. Max 2014 does this job in 0.5 sec.

BTW, how to roll back to 2021.2? I have some problems with SME + Corona7 DBs which are described here https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=32344.0. That would be nice if roll back could solve this problem.

[Frood]

Just to add another experience

Try to change something in that Corona material and see how much time it will take to get material update complete.

Works perfectly here (Max2021.3 + DBv7 + i9-9900K), update is almost instant, even when having IR running and having rendering enabled in SME + preview window + the MS material dropped into the SME view.


Good Luck

[Bormax]

Thanks Frood

[arqrenderz]

Downloaded the file and got the same result as frood, instant change of the corona mat of the single box
using max 2021.3 corona 6.1   win 10  ryzen 3950
The ones that make my max cry are the composite materials, those are SLOW

[pokoy]

Sorry, took me a bit to try...

Well, it's quite slow here, too. Pretty much everything involving materials causes a lag... even opening Slate takes a few seconds.
Old material editor is much quicker, and changing the material is much faster.

Strange that Slate performance is not the same for all of us. I'm trying to find out about rolling back to 2021.2

Thanks for the file!

[pokoy]

Tried again, switched to CompactME and back to Slate and now it's as fast as CompactME...
But still, opening Slate takes a few seconds. Opening the Slate mat browser takes a few seconds from CompactME too, so it seems it's slow whenever Slate components are being called. That sloth called Slate needs a serious overhaul, it probably was never really meant to work well with big scenes.

[Bormax]

Thanks arqrenderz for your input!

Thanks for you try pokoy!

I agree, It's really strange that on different computers Max behaves differently and nobody can explain why it is so :P. From my experience, for example, Max gives much better viewport performance if it launched as administrator. It was so with Max 2016, Max 2019, now it is so with Max 2021, but for Max 2014 it doesn't make any difference :). This was confirmed by few Max users on different forums, but, if I get it right, for most of Max users "run as admin" doesn't affect program performance.

Sometimes it feels just like good/bad luck and in this particular case I'm not lucky :)