Hey guys not sure if this is a problem on Houdini or something on my end but my interface on my Desktop is.. not laggy as much as it's stuttering.

It'll be fine for about 5 seconds, then all of suddend it'll pause and jump. I have the same issues with the interface.

Specs:
Core i7 4600k
16GB Ram
GTX 980 4GB Ram
256 GB SSD

My laptop runs normally. That one has similar specs except a newer processor and a 980m instead of the straight 980.

Thanks for any help guys.

Hello,

Those specs look ok to me.

Any chance you can post your Help -> About Houdini details here?

Also, is the Houdini UI laggy when it first opens? Or does it become laggy slowly over time?

And have you tried the Qt4 build? There's a download link in the main download page just underneath the big download button. I'm curious to see if the lag is Qt-specific.

Cheers,
Rob

Hey Rob - thanks for the quick response!

I attached the system specs.

I've tried the qt4, production build, and two different dailies.

Also tried both Indie and Apprentice.

I'm using bitdefender, but Houdini is on the allowed list. Tried turning it off with similar results.

It isn't really laggy, more of it stutters. It'll be really smooth, then it kinda cuts for a few frames. It feels like an opengl issue.

Although right now I've left it on for several minutes and is definitely laggy. Not stuttering anymore but definite lag.

Forgot to add I've also tried turning off AA. That didn't help either.

Thanks for the help!

Attachment not working right.
here is dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q354j6s2wo21rfk/Houdini%20Specs.txt?dl=1 [dropbox.com]

Are you using the latest version of H16? And - have you tried deactivating simulations (bottom right of screen, the “cloud” symbol, set it to strike-through), just to check if there isn't some wild goose simulation running for whatever reason …?

Sorry, just wild guessing here …

Marc

Thanks Marc! Tried that… didn't work.

It really is an odd problem…

I wonder sometimes if its a hardware issue… but I just don't see where. Everything else ssems to run fine.

Have you checked the CPU usage? On Windows you can use the Resource monitor and have a quite convenient overview on what is draining how many cycles … maybe you can spot something there.
Also, maybe you have some software installed that interfers with H - try setting up another user account and run H there.

Marc

I have been having the same issue on my rMBP.

Lags, viewports refuse to update, and it does seem to go even worse as time passes. This is especially noticeable after I switch over to another app and come back to Houdini.

Ran a few checks… I haven't used Modo in awhile - I've been mostly on Blender and Houdini. Noticed Modo is having similar issues.

So far UE, Unity, Blender and games have no issues. Houdini and Modo are both feeling a delay. Gonna try either a beta driver or a rollback driver.

Tried a rollback - same issues.

CPU usage is also normal btw.

Houdini and modo … hmm … could be a single-core issue (but I would expect Blender to suffer from hickups then as well) or an openGL thing.
Have you, maybe, increased GPU recovery time? Try setting that to default. Some tools that leverage GPU for calculations suggest doing that, but it can lead to strange “stuttering” in applications that use openGL.

Marc

… Man I don't know how to do that… I mean I use my gpu for doing processes, but I don't know how to increase or default that setting.

I have had a similar issue. so far for a few weeks I have been able to Redo this problem over and over but only if Im using a Pyro Shelf tool. I even reinstalled H15 and it doesn't do it. So I add My ground plane and sphere and add the Pyro shelf tool and up the settings everything is fine I can work in the viewport fine once I add a Light Redshift or Houdini's Stuttering while moving the camera or clicking on anything E.T.C. I have a windows machine 1070 I7 6850K 32G of DDR4 Ram a pretty Ok machine but this confuses me because the exact same steps on H15.5 works smoothly soooooo. Please help I can send video later today of the issue if I'm not clear.

UPDATE: the New daily Build fixes this but I Cant use redshift as a 3rd arty render with these builds so I can only test with Houdini lights.

UI is laggy due to pyQT crap, it happens to every app that gets customization through python.

Never been a fan of this approach, imo the UI should be hardcoded but now we have the entire node editor in python…GG

> UI is laggy due to pyQT crap, it happens to every app that gets customization through python.


if that was the case, I would a) suspect EVERY app that “gets customization through Python” (just like you claim) to show the same behavior, which does not seem to be the case and b) I would expect the same misbehavior of modo and Houdini on EVERY computer, which definitely isn't the case.

Don't get me wrong - I don't like anything about the Qt look and feel and I was one of those who told the modo devs that switching the GUI system to Qt would create, at the end of the day, MORE problems instead of solving them. But to actually blame a specific behavior on pyQt or whatever needs some backing up and should be reproducible.
In this case (maybe in these cases, they don't seem reliably related to me) it *feels* (to me) more like a specific system issue. My shots in the dark were attempts to narrow down on the actual cause, but I admit, without a lucky strike that's probably a waste of time.

A virtual machine on that system mimicing the same setup might be another test to see if it is a hardware problem - but that, too, seems overkill.

Sorry.

Marc

Dan Bertilsson
UI is laggy due to pyQT crap, it happens to every app that gets customization through python.

Never been a fan of this approach, imo the UI should be hardcoded but now we have the entire node editor in python…GG

How many UI scripts did you write with PyQt\PySide?
And where did you see “entire node editor in python”? It's bull shit

Similar situation here. On Windows the Network editor just gets slower and slower the more you work with it.

On CentOS 6.8 it seems to work much faster but one can still notice a slight lag in the menu. I havent experiencend the slowdown over time like on windows so far.


One thing I noticed is that when putting the Network editor in fullscreen (ctrl-b) the lag seems to be much less.

> On Windows the Network editor just gets slower and slower the more you work with it.

… that sounds like a different thing than:

> it'll be fine for about 5 seconds, then all of suddend it'll pause and jump.

… I wonder if we are talking about two unrelated observations here?

I have been using H16 a lot on Windows and so far have not yet experienced any significant slowdown EXCEPT when simulations or cookings/bakings were running (some of which I could not stop but had to wait to end). That's why I suggested trying to deactivate simulations, but that does not seem to help the stutter-thing.

Marc

Try updating your Nvidia driver to the 378 series (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us), [nvidia.com] as there were some reports of earlier 370-376 drivers lagging and a driver upgrade fixed these.

For the record, Qt only handles the window manager interface. The rest of the UI (gadgets, views, display, layout) is custom to Houdini and not Qt-based.

The new network editor uses PySide (Python Qt bindings) for the display options dialog, the find dialog, and the new info window. That is the extent of Qt use (aside from the Qt window management that @twod metioned that applies to all of Houdini). The network editor drawing is all OpenGL/C++. I did an early test with a Python/Qt canvas where I just told it to draw 30,000 boxes. I don't remember how long that took, but I immediately decided the network editor would not and could not be drawn using python (Qt or otherwise).

The user interaction code for the network editor (handling mouse and keyboard events) for the network editor is written in Python (see $HFS/houdini/python2.7libs/nodegraph*.py for the code). But this is not Qt, and I'm pretty sure is not part of any slowdown.

There is a known issue on Windows where menus can get slower and slower over time. The same problem may affect other platforms but it is most pronounced on Windows. This affects all menus in Houdini (and in fact all floating windows to some degree). But it becomes most obvious in the network editor where the node context menu tends to be used a lot, which is the fastest way to trigger this bug. That is the one Qt-caused slowdown that I am aware of, and we are working on it. Hopefully that's the source of the “On Windows the Network editor just gets slower and slower the more you work with it.” comment from @Doudini…

Yeah..I remember reading in this post about ‘stuttering’…and although it's not in my network editor its in the viewport.

Also like nischar said “…Lags, viewports refuse to update…”, or in my case slow to update.

Simple poly line created with vex…stutters when I try to change view angle/position.

And this is when I first open file not just over time.

Using 378 series drivers.

Since my experience with H16 so far is horrible in terms of usability (lags), I'd like to get some input on how to solve these issues. Starting H16 and trying to use the top menu already gives me the impression, that something is totally wrong. The menus don't highlight immediately, nor do the “realize” that the cursor is already above another menu.

The lagginess is although present in the node editor. Trying to choose a node or even get the node menu (tab) takes extra time.

I'm running windows 7, no PC is connected to the web. GPU drivers are up to date. In case I need any additional tools, please tell me which and where I find them.

P.S.: What is the Qt4 version for of H16? Is this the one to prefer? Or the one without the Qt4 support?

Cheers
Tom