Hi all,

max 2010 installed absolutelly fine on this machine:

Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook Series P
Windows XP Pro SP3
Intel Core 3 Duo CPU
1.95GB RAM
149GB hard drive

However, when you try to start it - the splash screen pops up for a second then nothing happens.

There are some suggestions that it is a graphics card issue… The machine has onboard Intel graphics:

Mobile Intel® GMA 4500M HD

Will this notebook run 3ds max? There seems to be no definitive info or answers for this anywhere… I’m hoping that someone may have experienced a similar issue before - and resolved it!

Any help would be great!

Revit Trainer
3ds Max Noob - Using 2010 and Looking for any help I can get!

System Requirements and the links on that page.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for that. We have looked at these documents, but couldn’t find anything about onboard graphics controllers…

Is there any reason why the graphics controller should be stopping a program from starting up?

Does 3ds max ‘look’ for a certain spec of graphics capability before it will open?

Revit Trainer
3ds Max Noob - Using 2010 and Looking for any help I can get!

On your Start Menu (for Max) there’s “Change graphics mode” - see if it will run with that and change the graphics to Scanline. If that works then most likely the onboard is insufficient for Max (the default mode is DirectX).

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

wow - never even seen that, thanks!

I’ve selected it on my machine (don’t really want to change too much around), and it has opened a dialogue for ‘Direct3D Driver Setup’ - I can either OK, Cancel or Revert From Direct3D - If I select ‘Revert...’ It opens a dialogue called ‘Graphics Driver Setup’ and my options are Software, OpenGL or Direct3D… (no scanline option so far)

Assuming the same options are given for the Fujitsu machine, what should be chosen?

Thanks for your help!

Revit Trainer
3ds Max Noob - Using 2010 and Looking for any help I can get!

Choose the software render option, the other two require hardware acceleration which your on board graphics card does not adequately support.

Stephen

Sorry - my bad terminology. Software is the one you want to try.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Ok…

The program wouldn’t even start when selecting the ‘Change Graphics Mode’ option…

So no settings could be changed.

Any other ideas guys?

Revit Trainer
3ds Max Noob - Using 2010 and Looking for any help I can get!

’Command line switches’ have been suggested…

Apparently this will create a log file of the processes as the program starts up…

Any idea what these switches are?!

Revit Trainer
3ds Max Noob - Using 2010 and Looking for any help I can get!

The command line switches are in the Max Help - Installdir\help\3dsmax.chm
User Interface | Starting 3dsmax from the Command Line

There doesn’t appear to be a “log” option :(

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Aye I found a few of these ‘switches’…

Not entirely sure which ones are meant to help this situation though.

Is there not a way to run a program in DOS or similar so you can see what is going on?

This is getting a tad desperate now…

Revit Trainer
3ds Max Noob - Using 2010 and Looking for any help I can get!