Hey guys, as the titles says, i've noticed that when working in 3ds max for a while, it starts to slow down. And I don't mean while adding new geometry ot subdividing, just cleaning up or adjusting an existing mesh.

-The scene contains 9000 tri's
-I have checked for any hidden objects
-After I save/close/reopen max, it runs fine.
-This happens on both my laptop with a geforce gt220m and my pc with a 8800gt (both systems have 4gb ram, and dual core 2ghz)
-this is 3ds max 2009

I know I can simply save, close and restart, but I'd like to know if this has an solution( some secret function to clear some kind of cache)

Thanks.

I get the same problems when I work with a lot of animation data, do a lot of rendering or baking.

Do you use firefox by any chance and have it open while you're working? It has a known memory leak that if left unchecked will eat up enough resources to cause apps to start slowing down or crashing.

You might want to have Windows Task Manger > Performance & Processes tab up to see whats growing in memory consumption. If its max there isn't much you can do other than check for service packs and hope they plug the leak.

I remember some old command that would do some garbage collection, but I can't find it and I think they took it out in 2008?

Have you also tried messing with virtual memory settings? I noticed a performance increase and lack of slowdown when I changed my settings.

MyComputer > Properties > Advanced > Performance > Advanced > Virtual memory

You can manually set the VM settings for each drive. For your windows drive, click "no paging file" if it lets you, otherwise use "system managed".
For all of your other drives, set the "initial" size to 1.5x your system ram (so for your 4gb, use 6000) and set the "maximum" size to 3x your system ram, or 120000. Make sure you hit SET when you enter the numbers. I wouldn't advise setting VM pages on external USB drives, though as it's slower.

Also, how long has it been since you formatted your PC? Everything starts getting slow after about 6 months of normal everyday use. Common sense really, but wiping the slate would certainly help.

Vig, I don't have Firefox , chrome .
I'll check the task manager tomorrow, good idea.
Vassago, my laptop has a fresh install of windows 7, and my pc a 8 month old install of vista.

I had to install 3ds max 9 for work, and that one does work withouth slowdowns, so I think it is max itself, 2009 version to be specific.

Thanks for your help, will let you know if I manage to fix this.