Viewports randomly change and flicker

[catface]

I recently bought a new laptop, an Acer aspire 5755g, it has the following spec:
Intel core i7 2ghz
Gforce gt540m
8gb ram
Running windows 7

On my previous laptop a much lower spec machine 3DSmax 2010 ran prefectly.

I installed 3dsmax 2012 on my new laptop and from the start I noticed very strange behaviour.
All 4 viewports keep jumping between perspective randomly. For instance clicking on the perspective view port will cause the others to swap around randomly. Sometimes just moving the mouse around will cause the viewports to flicker and freak out.
I thought it might be a bug caused between my graphics card and 3dsmax 2012 , so I installed the older 3dsmax 2010 and I have the same problem.
I have tried new and old graphics drivers and I am out of ideas.

[hogni]

Hey there ,
You might try and disable the windows Aero theme, i´m not sure it´ll work but it´s worth a try since it fixed my viewport problem(a different problem though )

[maxthebest685]

Hey go to start\Autodesk\Autodesk 3ds Max <Ur Version>\Change Graphics Mode
and checkout this settings..
Direct 3D version : Directx 9.0 /10.0
Direct3D Device : Hardware

You must Run your Max in Direct3D Mode..

[sperlingk1]

I have the exact same issue described. Max 2012 on a new laptop (Samsung RF511) 64 bit windows 7, intel i7 2630QM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M, 8G RAM.

All viewports will randomly flicker and cycle between perspective, top, left, and front views. They dont "actually change" because when right clicked, they always go back to what they should be and usually whichever is active stays relatively still.

The only way I can get anything done is to use one viewport maximized. With this setup, there is no apparent problem. Already tried using Windows basic theme and made sure I was running in Direct3D mode... nothing working.

[sperlingk1]

Installed most recent display drivers from nvidia. Seemed to help but not eliminate the problem completely.

But I did SOLVE the problem by changing the viewport driver to OpenGL in Customize>Preferences>Viewports. Im not too familiar with the differences between the drivers but OpenGL seems to require Hardware Shading, Shadows, and Ambient Occlusion to be on for some reason. In the viewport settings, these options are enabled but greyed out such that you cant turn them off.

[Suraci]

Autodesk has given out 2 hotfixes, these might help you out with the bug you got (If you haven't installed them yet).

Autodesk - Autodesk 3ds Max Services & Support - Updates & Service Packs

here's the link for the hotfixes / patches.

and if it doesn't work, you can always switch back to drivers to OpenGL as some have said before.