Beer glass scene creation
This course contains a little bit of everything with modeling, UVing, texturing and dynamics in Maya, as well as compositing multilayered EXR's in Photoshop.
# 1 25-03-2007 , 10:37 PM
tenchidbz's Avatar
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: NY State, USA
Posts: 3

Maya 8 config

Ok, so I am using Maya 8.0 on a windows XP Pro tower. The problem is that whenever I do anything it slows down my computer almost to a stall, the start menu does that blur effect as if the program is not responding, the CPU hits over 50%-90%, my ram drops like crazy. But its simple stuff, like a couple boxes with no texture, no animation, and preview quality rendering. I tried to paint trees and fire and what not using the actual paint tool, and that just killed my PC, but it is a new computer.

Here is the computers specs:

AMD athlon 64X2 4600+ Dule core CPU.
2.0GB of DDR2 800 ram (PC6200)
PCI ExpressX16 video card slot with a ATI Raideon X1950 PRO with 256MB GDDR3 video ram, a Serial ATA 3.0 250GB hard disk, 16X DVD +- RW Double Layer burner/reader.
19 Inch Widescrean LCD display, DVI out.
MS Windows XP Professional, legit copy I bought and registered.

System is defraged weekly, spyware/virus full system sweep weakly, or more. Does it matter on other system-specific variables such as virtual memory setup, or what memory is concentrating on? Such as programs vs. background processes? I have a friend who uses Maya 8.0 and has a much older computer that works better than my new one. Any thoughts, thanks!

Oh, P.S. I am a CompTIA A+, and Network+ certified
PC tech/ Network Tech, so I know how to keep my computer running well. So don't be afraid to be geeky with me! Would it be because of the ATI video card? would NVIDA be better?


Last edited by tenchidbz; 30-03-2007 at 09:38 AM.
# 2 26-03-2007 , 03:06 AM
gster123's Avatar
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Location: Manchester Uk
Posts: 6,300
Seems strange that its going so slow with those spec's?

I dont have a problem on my desktop thats far below those specs, AMD athalon 1.8 Ghz, 1 gig RAM, Gforce 4000 (or something like tha, so old I cant rememberwaht it is!), my laptop blisters through things, as its a lot higher performance than my desktop, Intel dual core 2.26 GHz, etc etc etc.

Seems strange, but than agian I've had some problems with another PC at work thats got an ATI card in, that seems to relly struggle with maya, textures are all over the shop and it runs really slow, then all of a sudden speeds up!

Whats your friends specs? It could be the graphics card as the ATI's are not qualified on autodesks charts (as far as I can remember), neiter are Gforces but it seems that you vcan get away with most of them (my desktops got one in and my laptops got a Gforce 7900 GTX with 512 of DDR3 Ram) and like I said I dont have any problems.


"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle
# 3 26-03-2007 , 08:23 AM
twisteddragon33's Avatar
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: New York, USA
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Im the friend he mentioned with the older computer so i might as well reply.

I have a:
AMD Athlon XP, i think its a 1.2 Ghz processor
Radeon 9600 Pro Graphics card
1 Ghz Ram.

Maya runs well on my computer in most situations im happy with.

Ive used maya on his computer and it is very problematic with simple problems.

I checked most of his settings and i dont understand the slowdown i was hoping one of you guys who are used to running maya on multiple machines could help.


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# 4 27-03-2007 , 12:04 PM
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Sounds pretty strange that Maya would slow down on a box as powerful as yours. I myself have an ancient box with probaly the lowest specs on the forum:

Dual Intel Pentium 3 'S' CPUs at 1133 MHz with 512 L2 Cache
2-Way SMP Gigabyte Workstation Motherboard - Supports ECC
512 MB of slow 133 MHz non ECC RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 128 MB Graphics Card

The machine is all right for modelling, a bit slow when animating, working with simple dynamics and is completely hopeless for rendering with high quality raytracing.


Anyways, I'm just guessing here, but check wether your processor time settings are set to Window's defualt in the task manager. Also check that Maya has enough virtual memory to run and see if your file system settings are set for performance with the caching enabled.

It wouldn't hurt to run a benchmark like Sandra as well (as long as your box is not having heat or power problems). A demo from a graphics card manufacturer or something that involves using a lot of CPU power such as a recent game would also help see wether somethings wrong with Maya or your system. I would recommend that you do the benchmark and compare those with results on a reputable web site. That way you can see if there are any major differences in performance.

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