To start off, sorry if this is the wrong area to post a UI issue, I am new to the forum.

Today I installed Houdini 11 after running H10 for a year or so. I was able to install the product with no issue other than a simple user interface issue where I am unable to place an object, change the simple “box” to smooth wire shaded or any other setting to see “materials” or any other view that will display the box in a non-wire frame mode. I have also noticed that where you would usually see “Render View” and the 3 other tab's there are no letters there. Further more I noticed that there are no letters in the “canvas” view when trying to switch to your camera or perspective view.

Just as a sanity check I loaded up Houdini 10 and I placed a box in a scene, changed the box to smooth wire shaded, the box is shaded…the text shows up in the UI for render view etc…

Is there a known bug for Houdini 11 on MAC Snow Leopard 10.6.6 running 2x 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors? Or am I simply doing something wrong with the initial setup of Houdini 11 potentially? Since Houdini 10 still works as expected, I was starting to think there might be a bug? Any help is greatly appreciated as I would like to dive into this new product. Thank you

I also attached a file of what I see when loading up Houdini 11. The UI is pretty much there, other than some text to let me know what a tab is etc…

In the MAC the Graphics card is listed as a = ATY,RadeonX1900

The drivers are up to date and Houdini 10 is still working fine with this Graphics card. I wonder if support for this card was dropped in the new H11?

This is a known issue with the older DX9 ATI cards on the Mac. We aren't really sure what causes it, though it looks like the text in the pane is flipped vertically. This is the only hardware/software combination that exhibits this issue, which tends to indicate a driver bug.

You could try fixing it by setting the environment variable

HOUDINI_OGL_DISABLE_FBO = 1

in the $HOME/houdini11.0/houdini.env file (create it with the above line if it does not exist).

This seems to help at start up and initially looking at the UI. Upside down text still appears and the “Scene View, Channel Editor, Render View & Composite View” tabs text disappears when clicking on a object node. The tab text then re-appears right when the mouse is moved. Perplexing as Houdini 10 works fine.

Also once placing and object into a scene and switching to “render view” and then coming back to “scene view” the background stays black. Of course probably a limitation of the card itself and the bug that you mentioned. Just figured I would put it out there for any other users running the same card with H11 newly installed that might be browsing the forum for this issue.

So in summation, get a new graphics card? Any suggestions that won't set a user with a limited budget back too much?

Houdini 10.0.734 re-installed and working as normal. Just to let users with the same UI issue as I'm having know. Do you think there is something that was broken in the code while developing to 11 for users with this card? I know we probably represent a very small amount of the market, but maybe the sidefx developers could take a quick look into it? I also submitted a bug on sidefx.com.

BTW thanks for your help twod! Ultimately upgrading to a better graphics card is probably best in this situation anyway. I think I have had this one for over 3 years now maybe.

yep. i have had the same issue on and off in 10 , but then it somehow got fixed. and now I m having the same issue in 11. pretty much cant use 11. ATI Radeon x1900XT

sf_dude, San Jose Houdini user here.

If you come across a video card that will fix this issue, please let me know… so far I don't see many options. I really want this to work since I paid the $99 bucks for it.

The cheapest ATI card that I can find in Apple's store is the ATI 5770 ($270). If you can find an ATI X2600XT, 3850 or 4870 for Mac, those will work as well . This appears to be a problem only with ATI's non-unified shader cards (the X800/X1000 series). All OpenGL3 capable ATI cards will work properly, as long as they are certified Mac Edition cards.

twod,

Thanks for the update, that really helps! $270 is not bad, I would like to go with a NVIDIA card but not finding much luck there. I will see if these cards are compatible with early 1,1 versions of the MAC Pro.

I have a NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac just sitting around dying to put it into a new Mac Pro, but don't have the funds for that at the moment. Thanks again for re-posting to this thread with more information.

From the FAQ on the 5770 Apple store page:

Will this work in a Mac Pro 1,1 ? I know it doesn't mention on the compatibility, but Apple is known for underselling graphics cards
o Asked by FR from Folsom
o 9-Aug-2010

Best Answer

It Works. I just installed one on my 2006 1.1 Mac pro. BUT: I connected each of my two 22“ monitors to the mini-display ports using adapters to DVI cables, which works perfectly. Then, when I connected my HD TV to the DVI port, it won't work. I read something about it being overridden by the MiniDisplay Ports. Not sure why this happens, but Apple, if your listening, a software fix for this would be greatly appreciated! I want to use it to run my Netflix on the big 42”…

I just posted a similar problem before seeing this thread. Same thing here with Houdini 11. Only I have a MacBook Pro with the ATI x1600. No shaded objects will appear. Bummer. I can't change graphic cards.