Strange sim speed change on save/reopen

[KenTanker0us]

Hello friends, I'm experiencing a strange slowness when I sim after re-opening a scene. I've been able to re-create it a number of times.

I create an FFX grid, add an Object Source helper, make a small sphere, add it to the helper, add that helper to FFX. Move the sphere into the lower center of the grid.
Turn off fuel, smoke only. Set my directories.

This sims SUPER quick. A little sphere emitting smoke.

BUT...

Now I save it and re-open it. The sim is DOG SLOW. I wonder if anyone can offer any insight? What am I doing wrong?

I appreciate any and all advice.

Ken

[sitnisati]

Hello,

Could you please let us know the FumeFX version, 3ds max version and also to include the scene in question ?

Thank you.

Kresimir Tkalcec

[KenTanker0us]

Thank you for your time, Kresimir.

This is in fume 4.1 Educational, max 2016 SP3. I am attaching the file.

Thanks very much for the help.

Ken

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[sitnisati]

Hello,

Thank you for the scene.
Unfortunately, we cannot reproduce this behavior.

If you look at the task manager do you see different CPU utilization ?

Regards,
Kresimir Tkalcec

[KenTanker0us]

Thank you for your response, Kresimir.

With your permission I will list all info that might be useful:

1. When I reload the scene, the viewports all go black for (roughly) 10 seconds before completing the reload.

2. After the screen stops being black and the scene is loaded, when it is doing the 'slow' sim, all the FFX windows will frequently go white.

3. Average frame time before save/reopen is 0.9 seconds. After reopen average time is 10 seconds.

4. CPU usage before save/reopen is around 25%. After reopen CPU stays down around 2%.

5. My GPU is GeForce GTX 670.

6. I have 32GB ram. I have done many FumeFX sims on this machine in the past, but that was in Max 2014. I am in 2016 now.

7. I recently changed my to network licensing. I learned all about configuring AfterFLICS and everything is getting a license ok. When I was troubleshooting, I did open ports in my firewall through AVG. Could that possibly cause a problem? It seems crazy to me but I feel I should mention anything involved with FFX at this point.

Any advice is welcome. I look forward to having this problem addressed so I can have some fun with Fume.

Thanks very much

Ken

[sitnisati]

Hello Ken,

1. Could you try to set Scanline as renderer, save scene and reopen and see the result.
2. Try to delete FumeFX grid, save and reopen - does viewports go black ?
3. If nothing helps, maybe could you please get the latest video card drivers and see if it helps?

FumeFX does not trigger any licensing when the file is loaded, so that will not cause problems.

Thank you.

Kresimir Tkalcec

[KenTanker0us]

Thank you for your time, Kresimir. Here are my results:

Could you try to set Scanline as renderer, save scene and reopen and see the result.

Condition did not change after doing this.

Try to delete FumeFX grid, save and reopen - does viewports go black ?

No the viewports did not go black, and the scene opened faster.

If nothing helps, maybe could you please get the latest video card drivers and see if it helps?

I did this as well. It did not help, sorry to say.

I am stumped Kresimir, I hope you aren't !

Again I thank you very much for your help.

Ken

[KenTanker0us]

Okay Kresimir, I have discovered something.

If I open the file from my desktop, everything works normally. I am still experimenting with output paths, location of max file. But it seems like if I open the file from my NAS, I have the problem.

This would indicate a problem with my network, I guess. This SUCKS because I have no idea why this would happen.

However it seems like the problem is not with fume. Good news for you I think, but still not good for me.

If anybody has any insight into this problem, PLEASE share it. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next.

Thank you for your time.

Ken

[sitnisati]

Hello,

Thank you for the information update.

I was wondering - do you maybe have an antivirus app running?
It might have been scanning the .fxd file for each frame which can take a lot of time so it's definitely worth checking.


Regards,
Kresimir Tkalcec

[KenTanker0us]

Thanks Kresimir, yes, I am running AVG.

I just went through a lot of problems learning how to license Fume across my network, and one of the things I ended up doing was opening ports in my firewall through AVG. But that was before I found out what I was really doing wrong, so I'm not sure the operations in AVG were necessary or not. Much confusion there. So yes, AVG might be a suspect. What strikes me funny was I tried the save/reopen test with AVG temporarily disabled and still had the problem.

I am very slammed with a contract job away from home so I am limited in my time for troubleshooting, but I will pursue this and post my findings if you like. I might scream for help every once in a while too. :'(

I guess the good news is I can sim and work if I save the file locally for now. But I can't stand things being this way so I will be checking back. And once again I thank you for your time, and I hope that someday my troubles might help someone else on the forum.

best,

Ken

[finalight]

This issue reminds me of when I had similar slow downs. Fresh scene, newly created box - sims fast. Then I save it to the project folder and sim is incredibly slow. If I resave to the local workstation 'my documents/3dsmax/scenes' folder, it's super fast again. I save all sim scenes this way now. Still don't know why it's slow saved outside of 3dsmax install folder structure. Do note that I run multiple versions of fumefx - haven't determined if the latest version has this issue.

I think the issue for me started in 3.x.x. Have another post about it somewhere.