Maya 8.5 framerate drop

Post by **rstadie** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:12 am

Raayaar wrote:Update: In empty scene framerates are exactly:

- 60 fps when using mouse
- 17 fps when using space pilot

I also have 60 fps with the Pilot. Please try to disable all options inside the History of the Script Editor.

If that does not help, please turn on the first 4 options inside the History tab and select History-Output: Show both. Then restart Maya and look for errors at the beginning of the log.

*UPDATE*

Raayaar, please send the following directories (zipped) to the EMail-Address you find in your personal Inbox:

A) My Documents\maya\8.5\
B) C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya8.5\bin\plug-ins\
C) C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya8.5\scripts\startup\

Raayaar · Post by **Raayaar** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:58 am

I've sent you my directories.

As I've wrote in the last mail: Me and two of my coworkers all have this same problem. But all of us have two almost identical computers - one with AMD CPU and one with Intel CPU. On all three computers that have Intel CPU space navigatros work fine. The low framerate problem only occurs on the three computers that have AMD CPU inside.
I hope this info will help you somehow...

Thanks again!
Ales

Post by **rstadie** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 4:45 am

Hi Ales,

I renamed my corresponding folders and used yours. Unfortunately - it works fine

I need to know more about your system:

A) Click on Start-run...
B)

Code: Select all

msinfo32.exe

Then click on File-Save... and send this file to the known EMail-Address. If possible it would be nice if you could also send me the System Information of one Intel machine where Maya 8.5 runs fine.

Post by **rstadie** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:39 am

Hi Ales,

Maya should really run with your hardware!

You can try the following things:
First open "Show 3DxWare Control Panel" in the start menu and ensure "Write log files" is disabled in the "Tools"-menu.

A) Do you see any 3Dconnexion-messages in the script editor? If so, please disable all options in the history.

B) Compare the Nvidia VGA-options between your Intel and AMD machine

C) Try to upgrade your VGA driver

D) Get the newest chipset-driver for your board (V 6.85 is available here).

E) Ensure you have no "Cool&Quite"-tool enabled (But I haven't seen one on your system)

F) Try if anything changes if you disconnect ALL other USB devices (perhaps you will have to stop the 3 razer- and tablet processes in devicemanager)

G) H:\ for your pagefile is the correct path?

Raayaar · Post by **Raayaar** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:40 am

Hi!

In script editor I turned on echo all commands and now I see a lot of messages like this every time I move the camera:
_3DxOnMotionEvent 0.000000 0.000000 -0.001302 0.000000 0.045573 0.000000;
I didn't try this at home yet, so I don't know if this is the reason. But now I can't find where I can disable all options in the history according to your advice...?

Yes, H:\ is the correct path for my pagefile, it's the company's rule.

Post by **rstadie** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:18 am

Raayaar wrote:But now I can't find where I can disable all options in the history according to your advice...?

Maya gets slow if you let the motion events show up in the history.

To disable these messages you can click on history and toggle all options to "off". The "History-Output" can be set to "Show Python only". Then you should not receive any motion events - and if Maya is still slow (what I suppose) this was not your problem.

When you open the task-manager while moving your 3D mouse - do you see any difference in process cpu usage between 3dxserv.exe, maya.exe between your systems (AMD/Intel)? Does any other process consume much cpu?

*UPDATE*
Please send your 3DxWare.log - you can enable logfile-writing by clicking on "Show 3DxWare Control Panel" in the start menu, then enable "Tools - Write Log File". You will find the logfile named "3DxWare.log" when you enter

Code: Select all

%appdata%\3Dconnexion\3DxWare

into the Address-bar of your Windows Explorer.

willshep · Post by **willshep** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:01 pm

I was under the impression that my maya 8.5 also was experiencing this framerate drop with my Space Explorer... but after experimenting with a scene, it turns out its actually the LACK of dropping frames that makes using the SExplorer so darn sluggish.

When you use Alt to orbit the scene, FRAPS says I have the same framerate, however using Alt-orbit "jumps" frames to get me where im going.. Whereas the SExplorer does not. Therefore it takes WAAAY longer to move into position with the SE than just by using Alt. This is a bummer, but might be a "feature" of the device and unavoidable. In any case some form of adaptive degradation as shown when using Alt-orbit would be smart.

Admittedly our computers here are old, but we are getting new ones in a couple weeks. This one is a Dual Core AMD Opteron Proc 270 2.01 GHz, 2GB ram. Nvidia quadro FX 1400.

This gives me 7 FPS in an empty scene WITH the grid displayed (and in view) . More like 25-30 FPS without.

-w

Post by **rstadie** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 1:41 am

Hi willshep,

Can you create a video of Maya in which we can see the problem? If you need a software for doing that you could give CamStudio a try.

Raayaar · Post by **Raayaar** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:33 am

Hello again!
I have discovered one more thing: When I have an animation playing in Maya, navigation speed with SN is perfect, just like with mouse - FPS is 60. When I stop the animation, FPS drop to 13 again. I will try to capture this on video.

Raayaar · Post by **Raayaar** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:07 am

I have sent you video on the mail you gave me earlier.

Post by **rstadie** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:13 am

Hi Raayaar,

Thanks for this video! That gives us the chance to reproduce it. Please send me the file you had opened while making this video.

willshep, do you also see this framerate-change while starting/stopping the animation?

Post by **rstadie** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:02 am

Hi again Raayaar,

Please try the following:
- Click on "Display -> Hide -> Cameras"

Do you notice any difference?

*UPDATE*
Does your framerate also depend on your screen-refresh-rate? As I have seen you reach a maximum of 15 in an empty scene - does this change when you increase/decrease the screen refresh-rate in your graphics-driver?

Raayaar · Post by **Raayaar** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:43 am

Hi, Robert.

No, there is no difference when I hide the cameras.

When I move around with mouse I have 60 frames, so graphics driver refresh rate can't be the problem...

Post by **rstadie** » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:16 am

Raayaar wrote:refresh rate can't be the problem...

I have seen differences in fps-rates with our devices in connection with screen-refresh-rates which do not affect the fps when using the normal mouse. It could be that you notice that the max framerate changes from 15 to 18 when increasing the refresh-rate to 75 Hertz or disabling vertical sync in the graphics-driver.
Anyways - it seems there is a different problem. I will contact you per Email to see how we could continue.

Raayaar · Post by **Raayaar** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 1:05 am

Hi!

I am glad to inform you that we have found the problem.

It was one of our custom Maya plug-ins that connects our game engine with Maya. Yesterday we switched to a new version of engine and suddenly framerate is normal, yay

I would like to thank you, Robert, for all your effort. It really surprised me how helpful you and your colleagues are and how much you wanted to solve the problem. I'm not used to this kind of customer treatment any more

I also owe you an apology because it was our software that caused problems with your product and it took you a lot of time. Sorry, guys

In the end I have to say that space navigator is a great product and it was a pleasure working with it even with reduced framerate. I'm looking forward to work with it now when we fixed the problem

P.S.: We started with one SN, bought by my coworker. I was the second to buy it and now our company bought 6 navigators for testing.