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heiyuu
06-03-2003, 11:37 PM
My 3D s Max is crapping out on me!

Ok, this is what happened. I was browsing the net with IE (cgtalk of course, lol), when xp acutally froze on me while i was switchinhg windows. ALT+CTRL+DEL didnt work. No biggy. I hit the reset button on my case.

DISK BOOT FAILURE.

WTF?! So after many failed attemps of restoring my OS, I give up, format and reinstall everything. I reinstalled max, downloaded my work files and THEY WONT OPEN!!!!

Like omfg, talk about insult to injury.

The file works fine at school and on my friend's computer, but everytime I open them, Max just closes. It's not just my file, I tried a few of the included tutorials and some of they more complex ones break max too (like the rigged dragon). baaaah.

I tried reinstalling max, same thing. I got a (legal) copy of my school's educational version and installed it on my computer, SAME THING! I can;t open my file or the dragon file.

I tried lowering my resolution and colour depth. I disabled nView (NVDIA software). I installe dthe latest driver for my video card. I went throught all 3 modes (Software, openGL and Direct3D). Nothing works

Keep in mind everything worked fine (dragon file and my work file) prior to the "big accident".

Here are my video stats.
Intel P4 2ghz
512DDR ram
NVIDIA GeForce4 ti42000 with AGP and 128DDR onboard
OS: Window's XP Home

I think it might be a memory thing, like 3Ds is not using the 128 onbord memory or something. I suspect max jsut closes when it uses too much RAM or something, because my work file is pretty big (over 150,000 polys taking up about 100mb or so of RAM).

I tried merging the objects from my work file into a new file, and certain objects cannot be merged (max just closes itself again). And if I view "into" (by zooming into the object) the objects I manage to merge, max just closes itself.

Everytime max closes itself there is not error box, and xp doesnt send that "Send Error Report" thing. Weird.

Anyone have any idea what the problem is and/or how to solve it? I think it might be the vid driver, or my OS (or max) not registering the 128DDR ram onbaord my vid card. I dont think it's my OS or any other programs interferring with max.

I will try to plug in my other harddrive, install xp, and install 3ds max w/out anything and see if that solves the problem.

Edit: Oh yeah forgot to mention I am using 3ds max 5.0 and I have never had a problem with 5.0 before.
tonygib
06-04-2003, 07:54 AM
Hi heiyuu,

I don't think its the vid card, at least not the RAM, in fact if it happens with max in software vewports, then no way can it be the RAM on the video card. It could still be the driver tho, wen you re-installed, did you put the same driver back, also is it the WHQL driver from nvidia.

Under XP, are you running the Service packs for max and is the c-dilla version one that works with XP (I think the one that comes with max 5 is ok now)?

You got any anti-virus running, like nortron, if so, disable it, completely.

So if I read right, max does start, it only crashes on loading large files? Do any other large apps crash, try Photoshop and make a BIG image, few layers, some noise, blur, etc. Also to test the graphics card, load up a recent game and push it to the limit.

One other thing to try is a test over your RAM (system RAM, not vid card) Go get memtest: http://www.memtest86.com/ and run a full check over the RAM.
gaggle
06-04-2003, 10:02 AM
Wow that does sound a tad weird. I was wondering what version of MAX5 you're using? Could it be that you had upgraded to 5.1 before The Incident, and then forgot to this time around? I don't know if MAX R5 behaves that way when encountering 5.1 files at all, it's just me guessing wildly.

I guess your scene could possibly theoretically maaaaaybe have some sort of thing going on that could disrupt things, but as long as even the tutorial-files are problematic we can safely ignore that possibility for now.
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