Hi,

As my portable machine, I'm using a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 which includes Intel HD Graphics 4400 (running driver 10.18.14.4080) on Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit. Surface Pro 3 also use the same GPU, as well as MacBook Air, etc.

In Houdini 14.0.201.13, the 3d viewport won't show any geometry except for in wireframe mode (none of the shaded modes work). I never had this problem in Houdini 13.

On your system requirements page, the Intel 4400 is listed as supported in Houdini 14:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2680&Itemid=390 [sidefx.com]


Is there a specific driver version I need to be using, or is this a bug?

Here's the GPU info from the Help > About screen:


Platform: windows-x86_64-cl17
Operating System: Windows 8 x64 (6.2.9200)
Number of Cores: 4
Physical Memory: 7.92 GB
Number of Screens: 1
Screen 0: 1920 x 1080 at 0,0
Work Area 0: 1920 x 1080 at 0,0

OpenGL Vendor: Intel
OpenGL Renderer: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4400
OpenGL Version: 4.3.0 - Build 10.18.14.4080
OpenGL Shading Language: 4.30 - Build 10.18.14.4080
Detected: Intel HD Graphics Consumer
Unknown VRAM
10.18.14.4080


Thanks,
AC

Not sure if you're limited to what you can install on your Surface Pro 2, but if you can grab the latest intel driver for that card, you should do so.

I tried driver 15.33.32.64.4061 for the Intel HD4000 (i5 3570), and I can't reproduce the problem. Could be specific to the 4080 driver or the HD 4600.

If you set the environment variable:

HOUDINI_OGL_DUMP_SHADER_ERRORS 1

do you get anything in the console when you display something in shaded mode?

How do I open the console window to see output errors? Do I need to launch Houdini from the command line instead of the launcher icon?

I manually installed the latest Intel driver on my SP2 because the one provided by Microsoft also didn't work correctly with H14.

It'll pop up by itself. If it's not, then the shader is correctly compiling, but to incorrect code

I reverted to the Microsoft-provided drivers (10.18.14.4029) and had the same result. Attached is a screenshot that shows what I'm seeing. Note that the display is set to wireframe shaded mode, yet I'm only seeing wireframe. No solid shading works at all.

Using Houdini 14.0.241:


Platform: windows-x86_64-cl17
Operating System: Windows 8.1 Pro x64 (6.2.9200)
Number of Cores: 4
Physical Memory: 7.92 GB
Number of Screens: 1
Screen 0: 1920 x 1080 at 0,0
Work Area 0: 1920 x 1080 at 0,0

OpenGL Vendor: Intel
OpenGL Renderer: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4400
OpenGL Version: 4.3.0 - Build 10.18.14.4029
OpenGL Shading Language: 4.30 - Build 10.18.14.4029
Detected: Intel HD Graphics Consumer
Unknown VRAM
10.18.14.4029

twod, would you mind testing your HD4000 with driver 15.36.14.64.4080 on Windows 8.1 64-bit?

Graphically, everything works for me EXCEPT any shaded mode in the 3d viewport. I also get some garbled graphics in the timeline.

The closest driver I can download to 4080 is 4061. The HD4000 is an Ivy Bridge GPU (i7/5 3000 series CPU). It seems that 4080 is only available for Haswell GPUs (i7/i5 4000 series).

The 4061 driver renders the shaded modes correctly, so this may be a Haswell-specific problem, a CPU which I currently don't have access to. As there are no compile errors, the only way to really fix the problem is to reorganize the shader code until the problem goes away. That's worked in the past, as sometimes the GLSL compiler does incorrect optimizations and a code reshuffle can avoid the bug.

The other option is to try other drivers from Intel, or wait for a driver update that might fix the problem. One of our devs has a Intel CPU with a 4400 at home, and the 10.18.10.3496 driver works for him, which looks a bit older than the ones listed on Intel's site (there seems to be two version #s, one starting with 10 and the other with 15, but the last 4 digits seems to match between the two). Perhaps you could try 15.33.30.64.3958 or .3960?

Edit: Here's the link for the 3496 driver that works: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=23339 [downloadcenter.intel.com]

Thanks for your suggestion; the 10.18.10.3496 driver works well with all shaded views! It would be great to get H14 working with the latest Intel drivers though, as they contain a bunch of fixes and performance improvements.

On a SP3, trying to install that driver doesn't work; it gives a message saying “Cannot install this driver on this hardware”. Are you guys doing something special for the SP2? I'm guessing the 3 has some sort of special restrictions on it, but it'd be nice if it didn't.

Thanks!

SP3? What's that?

Oops, sorry!

SP3 = Surface Pro 3

For a while there, I was afraid that you meant Windows XP Service Pack 3

Ew!!

Same problem for me. Houdini only works in wireframe mode on my Surface Pro 3, and no drivers other than the official MS ones are installable. I keep checking the journals daily in the (probably vain) hope for a fix…

I installed houdini 14 apprentice on my SP3 and it runs extremely well with no graphical glitches I could tell. I don't think I updated the gfx drivers since I bought it on release.

Besides experiencing the “wireframe only” view (although I'm in shaded view), I think I found another glitch that's related to the video drivers.

I'm using a Surface Pro 2 and I have problems disconnecting nodes. When I right click the wire between nodes, a lot of times I don't get the popbox showing “disconnect”. I just get the regular right click menu, like I'm not clicking on the wire…

I don't have either of these issues on my desktop with Nvidia card, only on my SP2.

I am also trying to run H14 on a surface pro 3, with the absolute latest driver it still fails to draw the meshes anything I could do to help trouble shoot the issue?

I really want to use the latest since there is a huge increase in performance

currently I am using the Intel HD 5000 driver version: 10.18.14.4156
Houdini v.14.0.281


for those wondering how to install the drivers manually:
download the x64 win8 driver .zip from Intel's site (extract it somewhere)
from device manager find display driver, right click and choose “update driver software…”
next “browse my computer for driver software”
now select “let me pick a device” option, and choose “have disk…”
browse to wherever you unzipped the files from Intel, choose the Graphics folder, you should see the graphics card in the list now and it will let you install those drivers

I have the same issue with Intel HD 4600. With the latest driver I have only the wireframe view and the glitches in the timeline