I’m working a scene but it’s hard to time and figure out because playback varies depending on whether there are keyframe or no action going on at all, is there anyway to stabilize playback?

Are you talking about when your objects start moving? If so, that means that playback slows due to your video card and/or processor being bogged down with real-time calculations in order to update the view ports. It helps to maximize only one viewport to test animation.

"If I see that damn teapot one more time....”

3ds Max 6.5 - Max 2012
Windows 7 Intel Quadcore 2.13 GHZ 64-Bit
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This is a big adjustment when you first start animating.
As you work with more and more complicated rigs you will find that you can never really get real time playback in the viewport.
A few things I would recommend would be to first, make sure you set your frame rate correctly in the Animation Settings.
Next, I work with my Frame Rate showing just so that I can see how off my playback is.
(Go to DISPLAY - Heads Up Display - Frame Rate)

***most importantly*** Playblast often.
Playblasting takes a sequence of screen shots of the viewport and then plays it back in real time.
This is the best way to quickly see the actual timing of your working animation.
To playblast, just hold down the RMB over the Timeline and select the option box next to playblast at the bottom of the menu.
Just use the default options at first to see how it works and then adjust to taste.

Happy Animating
~Ben

Did you go to Window->Settings/Preferences->Preferences and under Categories : Time Slider set Max Playback speed to Real-time?

All good, well yeah i think i’ll stick with the playblast concept. T

I quite often isolate the character I’m concentrating on with the isolated selection button at the top of the view port. Works some of the time. Otherwise I just playblast. You also might want to check that your renderer in the viewport is set to default and not High quality