Hello,

I still having problems getting Houdini work with my ati v7750 firepro card. I already posted something about this topic quiet some time ago. Since then I was trying to solve this issue with the ati support - but after more than 4 month working on this issue (without any useful feedback from ati ) I don't belief the issue will be fixed in foreseeable time. It's pretty frustrating seeing a 800 $ workstation class video card not proper working with opengl. Houdini runs without any issues on my six years old dell laptop wit a fx1400go – but with only 2gb of ram it is not really fun working with. I'm now looking forward buying a new graphics card for my z400, but I'm not really sure with will proper work with Houdini. I heard the nvidia offers a good solution with their quadro series , but these cards are also pretty expensive.( I'm still going to school, so I really do not have a big budget , experientially after I spent all my money in my current system ) . It Would be great if someone could share his/her experience with nvidia cards.
Thanks in advance .

I've always been a big supporter of nvidia, ever since i got my first workstation with geforce2 card. Was never disappointed with any of their products so far, currently using Dell XPS desktop with nvidia gfx260 (Was initially meant for gaming). Haven't encountered any Houdini related issues, but we cant be sure getting an nvidia card would resolve your problem.

Do you happen to have a spare nvidia graphics card lying around or know a person who could loan you one to see whether swapping ATI out fixes it? Else your best bet are to either pray for SESI support or risk purchasing a new graphics card.

Sorry, i was only able to share this much… not really a hardware geek.
Wish you luck!

eitht.

Hello eitht,

thanks for your feedback and your sympathy Unfortunately I don't have any geforce cards for testing in my system but Houdini worked on every other nvidia based system I tested so far (dell m70 / latitude E6500 / precision m6400) . I also contacted HP about this , but they don't see their hardware responsible for this issue, - so only the ati card is left . (also did some research about this and it seems to be an common problem with the ati drivers, the first reports I found about delayed selection in opengl are from 2008 !) But it's good to see even the geforce cards working with Houdini , but as their are not officially supported from SESI (and also not from HP) I might get into service trouble again if the issue remains constant after replacing the cards. Do you (or someone who reads this post ) know how the new nvidia quadro ferim (or the “old” quadros) cards perform in Houdini ? I actually can't imagine they having such serious driver bugs, but I want to be sure to not buy one of theses “non Houdini friendly” cards again.



…. Well, I finally also made a video about this….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1yTKePiKLY [youtube.com]

any suggestions ?

My school got HP desktops with nvidia quadro cards i think. Been using it for the past 3 months working with Houdini, no problems. If post again once i find out what's the exact models. ^^

Here you go,
HP Z600 Desktop, NVIDIA Quadro FX3800.

eitht.

Thanks for the informations, looking forward buying the fx3800 (or the fx 2000 which seems to be a bit cheaper) I recently also contacted Nvidia to inform myself about their certifications – fortunately all of their new quadro cards are certified for Houdini.