#3DS/AST Lockup Problems
8 messages in this thread
Hey, Brian —
I've been having some maddening problems getting 3DS R4 to work on my AST Bravo
90. It's a Pentium 90/PCI machine with 128M RAM, 2G SCSI HD with Adaptec 2940
controller, a 4M Diamond Stealth 64, and QEMM; 3DS recognizes the full 128M of
RAM. Ancillary software includes legit copies of Mirage, LenzFX, Metaballs, and
numerous other IPAS routines.
The problem is, 3DS locks up repeatedly on this machine, and I can't pinpoint
what's wrong. It will lock up repeatedly when rendering a FLC (especially when
using an .AXP such as Fire); the machine will render frame 0, then die. (Also,
if you take a look at the rendered frame, the colors are trashed, almost
XOR'ed?) It'll lock up when I'm modeling, and also if I try to merge scenes
and/or models. It almost seems like a video card problem, but I'm running the
same Stealth at home on my plain vanilla P90, and everything's fine. Do you or
Jonas have any suggestions?
— Jon
To check if it's really locked try typing in cd 3ds4 and type in 3dshell. If 3d
studio re-loads you have the same thing going on as me. Mine will just leave
the 3d studio dialog up and does not lock up my computer. It bugs the crap out
of me , but as long as I save every time I make any changes then I know I won't
loose my creation.
Mike White
I too have had never-before-seen problems with R4, which coincidentally came
about the same time as my Pentium & Stealth 64. Lately, things seem to be more
stable, but the only thing I changed was (strangely) running SmartDrive. That
is, I *started* running it again. I have not been able to determine if it was
R4 or the Pentium, or some combination of both. I do know that on this system,
running more than 1 EIDE drive along with SCSI & proprietary CD ROM
controllers/adapters, made 3DS go beserk. No other programs were affected, and
adding several SCSI drives causes no problems at all. Somehow, I've felt the
display drivers were involved with this too, for reasons too numerous to
mention here. Also, I've been told that using SIMMS with gold plating (vs tin)
causes bizzaro, seemingly random problems in Intel MB's.
FWIW,
BILL
Bill
Just to note, I've also had lockups and have been tossed out to c:\ three
times in the last two weeks, and I don't remember having had that happen
before.
It's happened on two 486/66's that are quite different. I'm getting so I save
every three to five minutes.
TedB
-Ted Boardman
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Hi Jon,
<< It will lock up repeatedly when rendering a FLC (especially when using an
.AXP such as Fire)… >>
Only FLCs.. but a series of Targas renders correctly?
Jonas,
I haven't tried it with a series of Targas, but at this point it may be moot.
About 20 minutes after I uploaded my message, one of our programmers came
downstairs and gave me a Compaq PCI P90 computer we were going to use as our
server. (We're going to swap computers, since I've had trouble with the AST
since Day 1.)) Since I know Autodesk uses a lot of Compaqs, I'm confident that
this problem won't repeat itself. I'd still like to find out what the AST
problem was, though, just for future reference.
— Jon
Jon,
The only note I've got on AST Computers referred to the Matrox Max Boardsnot
working with the AST EISA Motherboards that did not support "type "c" burst".
If that helps.
Murph'
Jon,
It sounds like this is not an issue any more, but just for the record…
Have you tried any of this in a stripped system (files and buffers only)?
If it is not an issue any more (thanks to your new machine), just ignore this
message.
-Brian