Self illuminated material slowing down viewport

Hi,

I am wanting to show the effect of a light on a display sign (such as an LED Display)of a circle of red. I was trying to achieve this using a self illuminated material which works well when rendered but slows down view port massively. Does anyone know a way round this or is this just a downside to using self illuminated materials?

Thanks

James

I've never experienced that problem?

What version of Max are you running?

What are your computer specs?

What happens if you uncheck the option to "Show Material in Viewport"? Does that help your performance?

Hi,

I'm running Max Design 2009. I did have options to show material maps switched on but realised this was slowing it down ALOT so switched them all off but was still running slow so then changed my self illuminated materials so they were'nt self illuminating and seems ok now which is why i assumed it was this but could be wrong.

Not the highest spec PC-Intel dual core 2.6ghz, 4gb ram (on 32-bit) with Quadro FX 1700 Card

One other thing, if i change my view to display edged faces it the viewport runs really smooth but if i switch this off, it's really slow - do you know why this might be?

Have you applied the Service Packs and Hotfixes?

Yeah i have all the patches installed