Material not assigning in cycles render, works in blender renderer I am trying to assign a material to a mesh I have. Whenever I assign a material to my mesh in blender render, and then change the diffuse colour, it works, though when I try the same thing in cycles render, nothing happens. I have to change the viewport colour in order for me to see an effect. How do I get the materials to work in cycles render? What are the exact steps?
In the 3D view you can change the viewport shading to rendered SHIFT + Z then you can see the changes you make in your material. 
But if you want to see the different colors in the 3D viewport under the solid viewport shading then you have to change the viewport color in the material settings as you did.