Hi folks-
I'm contemplating jumping into Houdini fluids- . I've read that Max is single-threading optimized, so Intel is its go-to cpu.
My question: is Houdini too? (If not, i'll get a threadripper.)
A secondary question: i've gotten the impression on this forum that GPU's are secondary. Can you recommend an appropriate beginners card .
Thanking all for help in advance .

suniram

What did the sadist do to the masochist? Nothing!

Hi Suniram,
watch this:
https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/speed-up-fluid-simulation-using-opencl/ [www.sidefx.com]

regards

Olaf

Olaf-
I appreciate your kind help, but i have no idea how these ‘preconditioner’ and OpenCL
benchmarks relate to my question (except, perhaps, to imply that GPU's are a factor in render speeds, contingent on particle count).
Sorry if i'm being dense here but we've all got to start somewhere and i've always been more a right-lobe kind of guy.

Hi Suniram,
houdini can make use of cpus and gpus. Depending on what you want to do it can make sense to get a fast gpu.
Threadripper is ok to use.
a gtx1070 is good enough (as you can see in the video i attached) and will be as fast a dual 10 core xeon setup. But you simulations are limited by the 8gb ram on the cards…

My biggest recommendation is a lot of ram. At a minimum 32gb.
At 64gb you are at a good level.

I also realy enjoy the M2 ssd for caching simulations and point clouds etc.

Have Fun learning Houdini and dont give up to fast. Its a long journey.

Olaf

Houdini can use cpu and gpu? Well, i guessed that much. And the more RAM the better- i guessed that too. So, sure Threadripper is “ok”- but is Intel “ok-er”?!

My questions were and still are: Is Houdini as single-thread specialized as Max , and, which GPU represents most value per buck for Houdini?

So my main questions remain unanswered. Still, your comments on RAM are well-taken- i needed the reminder as i would've gone with 16Gb. And your comment on SSD was particularly interesting- I'm focusing on fluids so i'm guessing that i shouldn't overlook a SSD. Thanks for that!
Suniram

suniram
Is Houdini as single-thread specialized as Max

we don't know how single threaded Max is so it's kind of hard to give you the answer you seek.

Ok- let me rephrase: Is Houdini (like Max) more single-thread optimized than multi-threads? (Yes, in both apps, there are tasks that do better on cpu's with more threads and/or cores, but since most of us can run Houdini on only one cpu, we have to pick a single (1 to 4 core) fastest possible cpu, or a multi-threading juggler of a cpu like the Threadripper. Is there a consensus on this forum for A or B? Where's the sweet spot?
I've personally decided on the Intel i3-8350K (with the Asus Strix 1060 GTX GPU).
Unless somebody tells me otherwise… Thanks for everybody's patience.

Skeleton walks into a bar, orders a beer and a mop.

there's no consensus, unfortunately, as Houdini able to be modified to be more useful on if you have a single core or a multi-thread core - i.e. if the HDA is single threading you can build another network that threads much better and compiles for 10-100x times the performance.

New processors like the TR have issues and advantages that other processors don't have i.e. Numa, OpenCL CPU issues vs it's price point.

Threading also is affected by the grain size of the process, the OS also affects the performance with Linux being able to get ~20% better performance and much better memory management than Windows.

Depends on what you're using in Houdini. Houdini is a big program with vast capabilities. Almost all the simulation/vfx stuff is multi-threaded. You also have VEX (programming language for houdini) which is multi threaded. Like others said, Houdini is customizable, so if something isn't multi-threaded, you can probably work around it and get multi-threaded solution.

So, what i get from all this is that if any of you guys had to buy a new system nobody would know whether to get (multi-core optimized) Ryzen or single/few core optimized Intel. Well, that's a surprise.
Doesn't matter i guess, I've just noticed that Houdini manual is online-only, non-downloadable. And of course third-party help, paper books etc. are very sparse and even non-existent. I'm in a remote community so my connectivity is limited. I don't have continuous access, and of course Houdini is a complex beast, so hello goodbye Houdini. Thanks for trying to help.
End thread.

suniram
Doesn't matter i guess, I've just noticed that Houdini manual is online-only, non-downloadable.

The help comes with the package and takes up approx 250mb of the installation. So no, it does download every time you install Houdini.

suniram
So, what i get from all this is that if any of you guys had to buy a new system nobody would know whether to get (multi-core optimized) Ryzen or single/few core optimized Intel. Well, that's a surprise.

Yes, all modern computer apps have a mixture of multi-threaded and single threaded parts, so it's not possible to specify exactly which is better. If you have an interest in this area you should have a look at the multithreading literature that includes a chapter for Houdini:

http://www.multithreadingandvfx.org/ [www.multithreadingandvfx.org]

“The (250Mb of) help comes with the package” “(but) it doesn't download when you install the package” (= Houdini). It comes with the package but doesn't come with the package. Huh?
At the least there's a communication problem here, because the average person looking to try Houdini will check out the documentation and see that it's not downloadable, except manually, page by page. (And is it really 250Mb worth of html's?! Well that's a(nother) surprise.)
So how and when does it come??? By pony express?
I'm glad there's a book out there that explains Houdini's structure but i don't think i'll buy and read it to get an answer to my question, thanks anyway.
As i said in my last post, my internet access is restricted (once or twice a week), so i must d/l it as a single package. Assuming PLE, how/when would i get it?
Documentation is unglamorous, an afterthought to most companies but it's the make or break bottleneck. In this respect i wish Max had all of Houdini's plusses because when you can't understand something in it, at worst you can buy a dozen books on it!

Irritating noob.

suniram
So how and when does it come??? By pony express?

That's an interesting question as approx. one million lines of text takes about 1 meter in standard book sized printing. So in theory you could pack both saddle bags with the printed manual but that's really a guess as I'm not actually sure how big the manual is tbh.

simply download Apprentice, completely free, install.

You'd see it will install a help dir in: (by default)

C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 16.0.671\houdini\help

there you find txt and zip files…why not html ? dunno…

So what you have to do is fire up Houdini, hit F1, you'd see it pops up a window with the
following url http://127.0.0.1:48626/ [127.0.0.1] which is your machine…not the big bad internet…

Bob's your uncle…happy reading

And it even gives you sample scenes…just hit the launch/load button and start dissecting.

(Note: you need the internet to validate license when you install, but after that, if you don't
have internet access, Houdini would still start up…albeit a bit slower as it tries to search
for a connection…then you can read all the help you want)