#BIG problems w/3DS
11 messages in this thread
Hey! I'm trying to use 3-D Studio 3.0 (Rev 2) on a Novell network (3.11) and
it's doing all sorts of wierd things! Sometimes, I can render everything just
fine, and then it will often just lock up with "video noise" (only way I know
how to describe it – black and green dots along the top 1/8 of the screen) on
one machine, and on the slave machine it will sometimes lock during a random
frame either during the rendering or transforming objects phase. Both are
486/66 VLB machines with 16MB RAM and > 500MB hard drives, 1.5GB drive in the
server, 2MB VLB cards (one is an Orchid F1280 VLB w/2MB, the other a Hercules
Graphite Pro/VLB w/2MB).
I've done my best through the dealer to get ideas and any suggestions, booted
"clean" with just "HIMEM.SYS" and the mouse driver, etc – still no go (I
normally have it using QEMM 7.03 with lots of stuff loaded high). I have also
taken the files and put everything on the slave machine, moved the hardware
lock and not even logged into the server and still get the same result(s).
I've looked at the logs on the network rendering times and everything looks
just fine – except the last entry is always [xx:yy:zz] Machine 2222 [486/66
Orchid] assigned frame nn… Something is really wierd here, and I've gone
over the manuals front to back several times, including the "advanced" guide.
H E L P ! ! ! (please <g>…)
Mike Ratledge, President Hi Tech Computer Systems, Inc. & 3-D Animation Studios
Mike,
<< .. all kinds of problems…booted clean with HIMEM >>
A clean boot is FILES and BUFFERS only in config.sys. A PATH and
MOUSE in the autoexec.bat. What resolution and color depth have you
chosen with your video cards? When you lower the resolution and|or
color is the screen problem the same. Are you rendering to NULL when
you send the project to the slave? Did you run 3ds vibcfg on both
machines?
jonas[adesk]
I did have a seemingly similar problem, although I have no network.
Green an black dots and stripes at the top of the screen when doing a large
rendering, it always happened when I put raytracing shadows as the global
setting.
The project file was about 6MB, I had 100MB free on my harddisk, 20MB RAM.
After doing a few 'building ray trace data' passes the computer simply blocked
and the green and black dots appeared through the Pull down menu bar about
twice as high.
Is this because of lack of memory space???
Christophe
Christophe,
<< …similar problems…>>
I'm going to keep asking the same question. Does
this happen when you choose a different resolution
and color depth? Does it happen when you choose
Driver=Vibrant and Board=VESA Compatible?
jonas[adesk]
It does not happen when I choose a different resolution or color
depth. My setup is driver=Vibrant The Board I choose is ATI Ultra
plus, although this is not exactly what I have in my machine, it are
ATI chips implemented on the motherboard by Olivetti with 1MB of
video memory. To my knowledge it seems to happen when the swap file
gets to large although I cannot check this because to computer locks
up. I'll check some other driver setups out and let you know if this
happens with the same rendering at the same resolution and color
depth, I'll post results in a few days.
Christophe… the symptom (dots and stripes on the screen while
rendering) almost definitely means that memory is being trashed
somewhere. You've got a device stepping on another device, and since
it only happens when you render, it's probably a conflic (conflict)
between your display card and something else (your hd controller
could be the culprit).
– G
I do not know if you still remember that I posted a message a few months ago,
that when I saved a prj. file a few times the computer rebooted during the
save, resulting in total data loss. You pointed me to the HD controller as
well.
The problem never reoccurred (I was running 3DS r2.01).
I did thus not change my HD controller, also no one seems to be believe me
since I can not simulate the problem again, and I'm not a hardware specialist.
However the problem I have always reoccurs when I put more raytracing lights
on, or set raytracing as a global light setting, and when I put a higher
resolution on.
BTW display card, memory and hd all are on the motherboard.
Christophe
Well, both machines are at 640x480x64k colors. Changing the resolution doesn't
seem to buy me anything. From what I've been told today by a couple of the
local 3DS gurus is that MS/DOS 6.x "just ain't cool" (yet), and that I *have*
to get rid of my 'Stacker' volume on one of the two machines. I am rendering
to NULL when I send the project to the slave, and I did run VIBCFG on both
cards… I have tried 'cleaner' as you suggested, without even the HIMEM
driver installed, but that didn't do much, either. (?) THANKS FOR THE REPLY!
Mike,
<< stacker ain't cool yet!>>
Well, that can be debated. Some 3ds users will stack
only a section of the drive for executables. Others
will do that plus a section containing their images.
The most aggressive will also stack the swap drive.
3DS will work under all of these conditions. What
happens when you put 3ds in VESA COMPATIBLE
mode?
jonas[adesk]
Mike – I've been following this off and on, so pardon me if I ask a
question that's already been covered. Have you looked at your card
and checked the Wait state. I know I was getting errors with one
display card that had a wait state of zero and the motherboard is
clocking at a different speed. I could get into 3DS but if I went
into the materials library of started a render it crashed. I could
even pull in a 3DS mesh. After that, or the next thing I did it would
crash. Excuse me if this has been covered, but if you haven't checked
it give it a try.
-JE
3DS r3 (Rev 2), eh? New one on me.
The best way to figure out what the heck is happening, Mike, is to
*completely* simplify your system (NO TSRs, nothing loaded high, no
network, simple-as-possible memory manager set-up (or none at all to
start), and no video driver loaded or configured (render to NULL and
look at the pic in another program). Remove all adapter boards except
the basic VGA and controller/ I/O stuff that is critical to the basic
operation of 3DS in the system. If 3DS renders OK at this point,
install the video-related drivers and see how this works for you.
Only after 3DS renders fine on *all* your machines in their simplest
possible configurations, should you attempt to "fine-tune" each one
and get things working together and at their best. Now add peripheral
boards to the system. Chances are, while adding things to the system,
test-rendering as you go, you'll run into the culprit(s) and deal with
them on a by-problem basis, using say, QEMM to arrange memory-related
problems for you. Tedious and time-consuming, yes, but often the
best way of setting up a rather complicated system.
If 3DS fails on a simplified system, the basic hardware/software/BIOS is
suspect. The above system, however, has worked for me every time.
Good luck,
-Alan Iglesias