Hi,

No matter what I try I can't get Houdini ( 11.0.701 or 10.0.734 ) working properly.

I tried several versions of the nvidia drivers (the latest being 270.51 beta) but no luck.

I get random freezes (not crashing, just not responding for a while) when doing basic things such as playing through the timeline in an empty scene.

I will also get flickering display, black panels or strange redraws of the UI in the wrong place and the wrong size.

The laptop is only days old. In fact I got it primarily to do some Houdini on the way to work and I'll have to try to return it if I can't get it to work.

Specs: win 7, 64bit, nvidia gt525m, intel i5 2410. I am making sure I run Houdini with the nvidia card. It has this optimus tech allowing you to choose the intel on-board or discrete graphics card, but I know that intel graphics is not a good idea.

Any help appreciated,
Rog.

You can make sure Houdini is running on the Nvidia card by selecting Help > About Houdini, Show Details. The renderer should say “Nvidia”. If it is running on the Nvidia card, perhaps the optimus tech isn't quite there yet for windowed OpenGL applications.

I feel your pain but I might have some help.

I have a GT540M and thanks to Dell I am still at release level 267 (even though nVidia is at 270 but won't install on mine). Anyway, Houdini expects at least 287 BUT…

There is a work around while we wait for nVidia to release their actual production drivers instead of the Beta ones we got.

Go into this file (with notepad or other text editor):

user_name->My Documents->houdini11.0->houdini.env file

And add this line to the end:

HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE = 1

I believe (guessing here) it forces Houdini to use software rendering for Open GL which then avoids the lame, buggy, not ready for production Open GL rendering by nVidia.

I did that and Houdini has been working great ever since. Takes a lot longer to render but since I'm using it primarily for model creation, its no biggie.

Also,

I went to the Render tab and unclicked auto and preview to keep it from constantly updating the render surface while I worked to lessen the load. I just hit the render button whenever I want to see what it looks like.

Anyway, hopefully that will help.

Thanks Twod,

Yes, I made sure Houdini lists nvidia as the graphics/gl used in the ‘about’ menu.

I also verified with NVIDIA Optimus GPU state view that hmaster.exe comes up in the “applications” renderered by NVIDIA. Are there any subprocesses that spawn from hmaster.exe that should have their own graphics settings?

I am really starting to not like this optimus business. Has anyone managed to run Houdini successfully with this?


Thanks, Crunchymonkey as well.

Changing that environment variable does do the trick. I guess that means that no hardware acceleration is used at all? That would mean some pretty slow viewport performance with a high poly count… Makes me sad that I paid for a graphics card.

You mention that Houdini expects at least version 287 of the NVIDIA drivers. Any chance you could point me to where that is specified?


Thanks again for your help.

Rog

As extra information:

By changing the optimus global settings to always use nvidia graphics for all processes I can get Houdini to run normally at startup.

However as soon as I play through even the simplest of scenes there is an obvious memory leak. Memory quickly increases from 250 mb to my maximum of 4gb after which it obviously stops functioning.

It is the kind of memory leak I would see in my own applications when I would forget to clean up my GL display lists… Could this be a hint?

Rog.

For the benefit of others: houdini-10.0 does run ok when set to use the intel graphics. Houdini 11 will only work when set to use no hardware acceleration.

From looking at other forums a lot of people (maya users included) are experiencing this type of issues with recent nvidia cards.

Still deciding whether I should send this machine back. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a good alternative that its guaranteed to work reliably…

R.

I think you just have to wait for Nvidia to get their drivers sorted.

I just bought a GTS 450 instead of a 5xx because I didn't want to wait for Nvidia to catch up…. plus it was cheaper

Cheers,

Peter B

Try adding houdini.exe, mplay.exe, hkey.exe and gplay.exe to the optimus list. However, since your about dialog already says it's using the Nvidia GPU, this might not change anything.

The desktop Nvidia GPUs and non-optimus GPUs should be fine. It appears the issue is with the optimus software, which copies the Nvidia framebuffer into the Intel video memory for display.

Yes, I think it will be a waiting game until the drivers are sorted.

I have decided to hang on to the laptop as it is semi-functional and it's hard to find a non optimus laptop now.

It could be a long waiting game though, I think Nvidia is more worried about supporting games than 3d applications. They have just updated their drivers to 270.61 and it makes no difference whatsoever

Rog.