For fun, I tried installing the Apprentice Edition on my brother's Dell computer that came with an ATI Rage 128 Ultra 16 Mb video card.

If you experience some problems using Houdini with this video card, you can make it run in software only mode. To do this, set the environment variable HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE to 1.

Under Windows XP, to set environment variables, right-click on My Computer and choose Properties. Switch to the “Advanced” tab and click on the “Environment Variables” near the bottom. Then under “System Variables”, push the “New” button. Finally, type in “HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE” (without the quotes) inside “Variable Name:” and put a “1” (without the quotes) inside “Variable Value:”. Now just hit the OK button until you're out. For Windows NT and Windows 2000 systems, the process is similar although labels have been changed and renamed slightly.

Have fun with Houdini!

-Edward

Does this mean that all ….load of work will be placed on CPU's shoulders?

An update on using Houdini on the ATI Rage 128. I found that especially in the textport, characters would not properly erase when you hit the backspace key. It also appears in the playbar's frame number where new frame numbers do not seem to erase the old frame number and simply draw on top.

I have discovered that setting the environment variable HOUDINI_OGL_DBL_BUFFER_FIX to have a value of 1 will fix these problems.

This looks like exactly what I have been searching for for about a week now. Setting the environment variable HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE to 1 on my yet-to-be-upgraded software/hardware configuration right now and then reboot, and see if Houdini ever crashes again when I apply a VEX Plastic to an object in my scene. I have seen the message “Fatal Error - Segment Fault” about 20 times so far and it has made it hard to learn. Then again, when you try to run such powerful software on a TNT2 M64 32M card (which doesn't even support DirectX - I didn't know this when I bought it), you expect certain compromises. I'll come back and edit this or update it when I know whether or not it has fixed my problem. Thank God I finally found this! I have searched for “Houdini, software mode” and every other combination I could think of. Back soon…

John

Here is another brainer!
I have an Radeon 8500 and OGL support was allways BAAAAD with this card(like any other ATI consumer card)
As usual. When the latest release of driver for this card came out(a fiew weeks ago) I installed it, hoping that some more of Radeons glitches would go away.
Fat chance! Like many other times before, I concidered myself happy that no new bugs appeard and forgot about the whole thing.
Couple of days later I was thinking about it again and I desided to tryout another OGL HARDWARE related variable. I've set HOUDINI_OGL_HARDWARE to 1 and…..
What do you know!
It worked. I will still have to try and do many different staff with Houdini to see how the card handles it but most of immediate, annoyeeng things that usually happen with GUI are gone.
Yepee!!!

Can somebody form SESI explain what happens here?
The card behaves very strangely!
I mean… If I dont set any variables, then card works half good.
I know so because if I set HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE than all the bugs go away. This can only mean that card worked before this variable was set and now it doesn't.
On the other hand. If I set HOUDINI_OGL_HARDWARE, than card starts to work normally.

Stremik,

What happens if you remove both environment variables? I'm guessing that ATI has improved their Radeon drivers so that they can work with Houdini in hardware mode now.

Indeed they did.
Over the past fiew releases there was many bugfixes.

———————————————————–

If I remove all variables, one problem occurs when I switch between desktops. It takes very long!
But I was wrong about “HOUDINI_OGL_HARDWARE” variable!
The one that actually fixes this problem, is “HOUDINI_OGL_DBL_BUFFER_FIX”.
Well. ALLMOST fixes! Sometimes, when switching desktops, if a desktop you are switching to, contains a viewer pain, it's not or just partially updated, leaving in the view area remnants of what was at this spot in previous desctop. All the artifacts usually disappear as soon as you do something in viewport, like zoom etc.

What about Nvidia cards causing a fuzzy drifting interface?

It is the strangest thing I have ever seen before. everything inside the windows border is blury. and thing are drifting to the upper righthand corner. I have a Geforce 4 ti4400 128mb ddr card I can add the

HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE 1 and the interface is fine although a little slow.

Are Nvidia Consumer cards not supported for Hardware OGL?

I've started a new thread for nVidia cards. Please see:
http://www.sidefx.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3129 [sidefx.com]

I am planning on purchasing a new video card in a couple of months and am not sure if it will be ATI or nVidia. I am reading reviews and questioning different people for their opinions and I thought I would try here. Are the ATI drivers (OGL) better now (stable)? Awhile ago I heard that the ATI cards didn't work well with 3D programs. Is this still the case? It's always better to get opinions from ATI users. I would be using the card for 3D and gaming and can't afford the high end pro cards. Any info would be appreciated, thanks.

Stremik, try RivaTuner with SoftFireGL patch script. And maybe you'll get best results with your R8500 )

Sorry for bringing this old thread back to life; but I have just bought a Radeon 9600XT card and can't get Houdini to work.

I set these variables: HOUDINI_OGL_DBL_BUFFER_FIX, Value = 1
HOUDINI_OGL_HARDWARE, Value = 1

These gave a slight improvement; but, when I dropped a couple of sops and copied/pasted a transform sop (ctrl-c/ ctrl-v) my computer hung up. I tried to use the Software variable but didn't get any improvement at all. I also unchecked the “Smooth line” within the preferences in Houdini.

One time I actually got a blue screen with this error:

Problem files = ati2dvag, the device driver got stuck in an infinite loop.
Stop: 0 X 000000EA (0 X 823E2A28, 0 X 83AB46A8, 0 X 829EF420, 0 X 00000001)

I'm waiting to see if the computer store where I bought this card will exchange it for an nVidia card; but, I've had it for 20 days and the guy I talked to has to talk it over with his boss. I have a feeling that I won't be able to exchange it. The other thing I could do is get a PCI geForce 2,3 or 4 card I guess. But, if there is a fix for my problem I would rather just keep this one card.

My specs:

P4 2.4 Ghz
768 PC2700 DDR Ram
WinXP Pro
40G and 80G hard drives with plenty of room
Virtual Memory= 4000mb
Asus Radeon 9600XT (128mb), 4.8 final catalyst drivers

In the ATI control panel I turned off “fast write”, and turned off “vpu recovery” (it was recommended for Thief Deadly Shadows).
I also unchecked anything to do with DVI and the icons in the system tray and checked “disable quick resolution feature”.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? If anyone is using a 9600XT with Houdini and got it to work, please let me know what you did.

Thanks all.

On Windows XP sp1, I've found the Catalyst 4.5 driver to be fairly stable. Anything above that and strange things start happening. I have a Radeon 9800 Pro 128.

I'd also recommend turning off ‘VPU recover’ in the Display Properties -> Advanced -> VPU Recovery tab. It seems to produce a lot of false positive crashes, and doesn't recover properly anyway (the screen is corrupted, at least for me). If something really bad does happen, WinXP will shutdown the driver and return to 640x480x16 mode (usually).

With ATI consumer cards, OpenGL display lists are mandatory - don't use the “HOUDINI_OGL_DISPLAYLIST = 1” env variable setting (this is off by default anyways). I've also set HOUDINI_DISPLAYLIST_DELAY to 0, which builds the display list right away (default is 2). Displaying lots of polys without using display lists is brutally slow (and even not that many - 100k in even flat shaded is very slow).

You can set this variable through the Start -> (Settings->) Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables dialog.

Hey cyclinggimpe,

cyclinggimpe
Sorry for bringing this old thread back to life; but I have just bought a Radeon 9600XT card and can't get Houdini to work.

I set these variables: HOUDINI_OGL_DBL_BUFFER_FIX, Value = 1
HOUDINI_OGL_HARDWARE, Value = 1

There isn't a HOUDINI_OGL_HARDWARE variable so it's not gonna help. Rather, Houdini requires hardware OGL to run in the first place.

Also, the HOUDINI_OGL_DBL_BUFFER_FIX variable is only for Nvidia cards. I don't believe ATI cards need it.

Other than the above, I have nothing else for you as I've not used or owned an ATI before.

Good luck!

Cheers!
steven

HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE to 1.

thanks so much! this deserves a bump!

Incidently, if you have an ATI prosumer card running under windows, I've found the 4.11 Catalyst drivers to be much better and work with far more stability than previous versions. 4.6-4.10 don't work with Houdini at all - using them together is a good way to lock up your system.

Plus - you can play Half Life 2!

Cheers,

J.C.

not on my 'puter you cant! World of warcraft should be ok though