... but only when using hardware.
So, problem statement: After re-installing windows and max 2016 (SP3 I believe), all of a sudden I can't for the life of me get normal maps to display properly in the viewport. This used to work just fine, and I've verified that the problem is local to max, and not the models or textures. Strange thing is, the issue only occurs when I set the viewport driver to nitrous Direct3D 9.0. When using Nitrous software, all looks fine at a whopping 0.75 FPS. In all cases, gamma/lut correction is turned off in the preferences menu.
I've reset a load of things including graphics drivers, max's preference settings in the appdata folder, and tried different file formats for the normal map. None of which seem to work. Anyone familiar with this issue?