Since installing Houdini, the GUI has never operated correctly; it randomly displays different frames over the control bars and main screen, every time it needs to re-render it doesn't work. Sometimes shifting the view helps, usually not. I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that; it's a crippling issue and makes Houdini unusable. If anyone could help I'd appreciate it.
Thanks.

I don't have an answer, but for the folks who could help you I believe you'd have to talk a bit about your machine, OS, graphics card, driver version, houdini version, you know, the usual…

Cheers

Actually, I've been reading other forum posts, I think I'll just roll back to the last stable version; anyone have any idea how to get it?

You should be able to download builds here:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_download&Itemid=208 [sidefx.com]

Awesome, I appreciate it.

You wouldn't happen to be using an ATI card would you?

Klockworks
You wouldn't happen to be using an ATI card would you?

eheh.

For what it's worth, and as a public service factoid, I was having similar troubles on my old mac. Houdini 12 glitchy, artifacts and extreeeeme slowness.

Mac1,1 (2006 quad core mac pro), ATI X1900 graphics card, Mac OS X 10.7.5.

Got ATI Radeon HD 5770 card from Apple store, works great (yes even in this old computer), Houdini 12 is now running great. (A newer computer will still help tons for rendering I assume… but at least back in business for authoring!)