i thought over the problem again …
it cant be related to 3dsmax 2016.
first thing i remember the issue is opening the 4.7 files in 4.8 and the tesselated materials were gone, even though i didnt change anything at the models or the max version. it must be definitely a change in the engine doing this strange behaviour for me.
as said, i didnt get this problem at any stage before 4.8
kind regards
stucki