3D Studio MAX Configuration

System Configuration
To achieve the best performance, configure a Silicon Graphics 320 or Silicon Graphics 540 system using the following set of guidelines.

Hardware Configuration
For the best OpenGL performance, use a system with two Intel Pentium III processors. The second CPU combined with the multi-threaded design of 3D Studio MAX will boost performance by as much as 30%. For the best rendering performance, use a Silicon Graphics 540 with four processors. The highquality software renderer with 3D Studio MAX is designed to use all available processors. The two additional processors will boost rendering performance by 50%. Install the latest OpenGL graphics driver from: http://support.sgi.com/nt. Please see the driver configuration section below for more specific information on how to properly configure the latest OpenGL cobalt graphics drivers. Use the same display resolution as that used by a competitor. Don't benchmark using a flat panel display at 1600x1024 when a competitor is using 1280x1024 or 1024x768. A flat panel monitor has roughly 30% more screen area which will take roughly 30% more time to fill. A flat panel monitor also only runs with a refresh rate of 60Htz which degrades performance on a system configured to swap buffers on vertical retrace only,

Graphics Driver Configuration

Please note that this section has been changed to reflect the configuration of the recently released 4.1.2 driver. Please note that 4.1.1 and later drivers have more configurable options than earlier drivers. Create a new Graphics Settings and Memory Reservation Profile by copying the existing CAD Design profile. Testing has shown that the best results are obtained with 3D Studio MAX when the CAD Design profile is used as the base for the custom profile.

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Select Properties to change specific properties of this new property as outlined below. On the Graphics property page, set the Depth Buffer to 16 Bit. 3D Studio MAX currently does not use the stencil planes, so setting this option to 24 Bit Depth, 8 Bit Stencil only adds depth precision at the expense of performance. On the Graphics property page, set the Overlay Planes to none as 3D Studio MAX currently does not use overlay planes. On the Graphics property page, select Use Back Buffer .

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On the Display property page, choose an appropriate Screen Area, smaller will be faster, so 1024x768 will provide better results than 1280x1024. Be competitive, don't choose a screen area that is larger than that used by a competitor. On the Display property page, configure a Color Palette , True Color will produce the best looking results but render more slowly that 32768 colors. On the Display property page, choose an appropriate Refresh Rate. Faster is better, especially if buffers are swapped only on vertical retrace

On the Memory property page, don't allocate any additional graphics memory. But, if during a

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benchmark, white patches appear instead of textures, additional graphics memory may be required. At that point, experiment with different values until the texture images appear properly.

On the Advanced property page, configure the check boxes as illustrated below. Testing has shown that this combination of settings offers the best 3D Studio MAX performance. For more information on each of these specific options, see the explanation of the advanced options in the 320/540 user's manual.

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3D Studio MAX OpenGL Driver Configuration

Configure the 3D Studio MAX graphics driver to produce the best results. The driver can be configured by selecting Preferences... from the File Menu and then selecting Viewports . Confirm that the OpenGL driver is being used, if not select Choose Driver..., select the OpenGL driver and restart 3D Studio MAX as directed. Once setup to use the OpenGL driver, choose Configure Driver... and configure the graphics driver as pictured below.

Please note that the dialog box pictured above is that for 3D Studio MAX R2.5, those for earlier versions may appear differently with fewer configuration options.

Additional Benchmarking Guidelines

When benchmarking, please adhere to the following guidelines to achieve the best results. Keep the graphics display window clear and unobstructed by other windows to prevent the system from having to perform window clipping. In 3D Studio MAX, disable Active Degradation by selecting, with the left mouse button, the button with the small cube icon that appears along the bottom of the main window.

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In 3D Studio MAX, disable Real Time playback by selecting, with the right mouse button, the button with the key icon that appears near the bottom right corner of the main window and then unselecting the Real Time playback option in the Time Configuration dialog box.

Graphics Profiles: 3DSMAX2.5_41a.gpr 3DSMAX3.0_41a.gpr [Return to the main page]

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