twod Yes, mobile GPUs on OSX that support GL3 are supported. They're just having a lot of issues at the moment, which we're addressing in conjunction with Apple.
Discrete GPUs seem to be fairing better on OSX. An AMD Radeon HD 5770, for example, doesn't have any issues with selection on OSX. Nor can I reproduce some of the Nvidia-specific OSX bugs on a Quadro 4000.
I will see if we can update that section to make it clearer.
I can use only the production build. Haven't tested the daily builds yet. But in general OS X version seems to be much less stable than the linux and windows versions.
mtucker @tinyparticle, @itriix, and @d_keith, are you all running the latest 14.0 daily build? After release there were a number of changes put in to work around crashes when using nVidia cards under OSX. If it is still crashing, please submit crash logs as bugs!
Any workarounds or progress on the selection issue? I keep downloading and testing out the daily builds but the issue still persists, making Houdini 14 still pretty much unusable on my mac.
Right now I am using 14.0.258 with Nvidia on MacOSX but still having crashes and issues. It's good to know that Apple has acknowledged the bugs and there will be a fix.
Unfortunately we haven't heard any more from Apple on these issues (aside from confirmation that they could reproduce some of the nastier ones). I'm sure they've all been very busy Donald Trump-ifying the latest Macbook
We will continue to prod them, but we are largely at their mercy in terms of getting these underlying issues fixed. If we don't get a sense of any forward momentum from them we may have to spend more time developing workarounds, but there's only so much we can do…
tinyparticle Right now I am using 14.0.258 with Nvidia on MacOSX but still having crashes and issues. It's good to know that Apple has acknowledged the bugs and there will be a fix.
I'm curious what other issues are you having with it besides crashes? Are you experiencing the “selection” issues that I have?
I get lots ot the apple spinning wheel when using any of the new python interface tools . Even editing code in shelf tools gives me random spinning osx wheels . Hard restart is the only fix . I presume it's the interface crashing due to the graphics card .
To be fair Yosemite seems to be quite bad in general for crashing apps and the system in general. Its not good that Apple seem really not to be to bothered with keeping OS X up to date and robust for professional apps considering all the financial and human resource they have at their disposal.
I invested in a late 2013 iMac December last year with the GeForce GTX 775M 2GB Ram. It seems to work ok with only a few minor niggles with Houdini. H14 on my iMac does crash more often than H13 did but its not to the point where its unusable. From skimming through this thread it seems depending on the Mac you have you get a different experience with H14!
The general flakiness of Yosemite has made me think of running Bootcamp with Windows 10 when it is released.
Does it seem plausible that the apple bugs would cause improper point, primitive and vertex selection, while leaving edge selection fine?
I can properly box select edges. But if I try to box select points or prims, I get a random selection of points or prims instead of the ones that I selected.
Something else worth mentioning is that I can manually select a single point by clicking on the individual point. I can also add to this selection, by manually selecting individual points one at a time. It's only if I try “drag-selecting” methods (which is more common), that the selection bug issue occurs (giving me a random selection of points).
Just grasping at straws here but also, just to point out that I am on a 17 inch macbook pro. Doubtful the fact that it's 17 inch could have anything to do with the issue, but just being thorough.
itriix Does it seem plausible that the apple bugs would cause improper point, primitive and vertex selection, while leaving edge selection fine?
Yes. They control OpenGL on OS X, and if they choose not to include fixes/workarounds for “older” GPUs, there isn't a whole lot we can do. Like twod has mentioned in the past, a large percentange of the Mac hardware from the last few years is technically capable - and often installing Windows w/ Nvidia/AMD drivers via Boot Camp proves this.
Out of interest, is anyone using the public/dev beta of OsX 10.10.3? It may fix some of these issues.
Ultimately we should be banging on Apple's door to fix all their bugs so Houdini devs can spend time adding features instead making workarounds to Apple's issues.
I'm running it, but I have a Mac Pro and so can't reproduce the Intel inverted normal issue (which Apple has said they've repro'd) nor the mobile AMD graphics issue with selection. Discrete cards seem far more robust on OSX than the mobile graphics (which is sort of odd since they're in the minority).
