I just installed Maya on a new PC and it is constantly freezing. The specs are:

Windows 7 Enterprise
Dual Hexcore 3.4 Xeon Processors
48 Gigs RAM
Dual Nvidia Quadro FX 5800 with SLI

I have several other pieces of software installed and I have not seen much performance within the 3D view. I am pulling around 2 to 4 million polygons at a time but you would think that with a PC with these stats it wouldn’t be an issue. Maya crashes if I rotate a cube wrong and usually combining objects. When I watch the Task Manager as I crash I’m only pulling 3 gigs of Ram.

Is there an issue with maya and dual hexcore machines or windows 7?

Windows 7 64 bit
Intel Xeon Dual 6 Core 3.4’s
48 GB Ram
2x Nvidia Quadro 5800

Wow, you have a lot power, but i think you need the newest nvidia driver for the quadros

Thanks for the reply. I forgot to mention that I’m running Maya 2010. I have installed the latest drivers for the quadros, could the issue be with that I have Maya 2010 and not Maya 2011 with Windows 7?

Windows 7 64 bit
Intel Xeon Dual 6 Core 3.4’s
48 GB Ram
2x Nvidia Quadro 5800

nobody has an answer to this.... is it the windows 7 installation.... That seems to be one of the biggest factors.

Windows 7 64 bit
Intel Xeon Dual 6 Core 3.4’s
48 GB Ram
2x Nvidia Quadro 5800

I would check that your system bios is up to date.
dual high end graphic cards will require a really good power supply.

are there any messages in the system event logs ?
Is Maya freezing or the system ?
if Maya is freezing what does Windows Task Manager say is going on ?  is Maya 100% cpu bound

what are you doing when the freezes happen ?
Wacom tablet/driver installed ?
Aero on or off make any difference ?
sysinternals procmon.exe can give lots of info on what the system is doing

I managed to get Maya running smoothly. I’ve upgraded to Maya 2012 and now the issues have started up again! The computer renders only using 2% of the cpu....I have hyperthreading turned on so I dont know if this affects how much it is displaying vs how much is actually being used in the Task Manager? I have scenes that will open and render in Maya 2010… I open them in 2012… Mental ray crashes after 2 buckets! I would think with almost 10 million polys in my scene it would be a ram issue but I have 48 gigs and its certainly not running out in Maya 2010. Has anybody else had scenes that just don’t open in Maya 2012?

Windows 7 64 bit
Intel Xeon Dual 6 Core 3.4’s
48 GB Ram
2x Nvidia Quadro 5800

Maya viewport performance is entirely up to the graphics card.
you are only using one card in maya: SLI is not utilized in windowed OpenGL applications only fullscreen directX(games)
so i think your viewport performance is about right. “maybe”

For your rendering issue, use batch rendering.. and make sure Auto render threads is turned on!
not sure how the internal render handles 2 Cpu’s. so test it against a batch render.