hi,

here's what I've experienced a couple of hours ago:

Houdini was crashing when dealing with particles (both POPs and Particle SOP) - but only at certain conditions:
If the number of particles birth rate is as small as 100 or bit more - everything seems to be ok, but if the birth rate is increased to 1000 or so - I tried to zoom the viewport and the whole system crashed (not just Houdini) - i.e. the screen turned black and everything halted so that I had to reset every time. The funny thing is if the simulation was not static - If I pressed the play button and saw particles appearing through the timeline (it didn't matter whether forces were applied) - I cuold produce as many particles as several millions - I could zoom the viewport, dolly and thumble - everything went stable. The same happened when I didn't run the cursor over the viewport - even if the simulation was static - I could create more than 11 millions of particles - but as soon as I tried to zoom, or dolly or sometimes siple ran the cursor over the viewport - I got the same system crash.

I experiented the same with turning off double buffer and smooth line drawing - the results were the same.

I know that 64bit systems are very young and all - but maybe my report will help SESI in developing future releases.

- just my 2 cents.

my system spec is:
Debian-testing-amd64
GNOME 2.12 (if I don't confuse anything)
nVidia NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-8178
Houdini64 8.0.562
Houdini64 8.0.474 (tried both)
GeForce 7800GTX
amd 64 X2 4600
4Gigs RAM

Try following the nVidia release notes on disabling multi-threading and see if that helps.

hi,

I've installed the 1.0.8756 drivers and I don't experience system halts any more. Now I simply get a segmentation fault and Houdini manages to save a /tmp/…/houdini.xxxx.tmp file with the latest changes - so that I can simply reload it and continue editing. On the other hand I've played a bit with particles and must admit that I get seg.gaults only if I am in POPs or SOPs (in case of Particle SOP). If I a at the OBJ level or SOPs (and particles are ran in POPs) - I don't het any seg.faults. Weird, isn't it? And, btw, I didn't find any info on how to disable multi-threading under Linux. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Hmm … I can only find instructions for disabling it on Windows now. I could have swore I saw it for Linux though in the README. Maybe you could ask on nVidia's Linux forum to see if there's a way.

just turn it off from the BIOS ( the Hyperthreading i mean ).

I don't think you can on X2's unlike Intel chips?

AMD doesn't support Hyperthreading, it's an Intel thing. Multithreading is something different , it's an OS/process thing. You could check which versions/type of threads you are running on linux. The 2.6 kernel uses pthreads. See this link http//www.llnl.gov/LCdocs/pthreads/index.jsp?show=s9.3 Check your system if you run the 2.6 kernel (Debian still supports the 2.4 kernel with installs).

Check the readme of nvidia in /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-xxxxxx, there is something in there regarding threading and the drivers (hint search for “__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER” to “1”).

Could you paste your xorg.conf file here, maybe something wrong there.

hi,

I haven't yet found info how to disable multi-threading (Linux nVidia forums are remaining silent on this matter, but I'll start digging google now).

What I have tried so far is compiling debian nVidia drivers package from source and recompiling the kernel. I have also tried playing with xorg.conf disabling different modules except “glx” - results were identical.

I have also noticed that houdini seg.faults when I open the render_passes.hip file (sidefx tutorial) and try to zoom/pan/etc camera in any ‘shaded’ mode of the viewport (wireframe modes don't crash houdini). I also tried turning the camera away from any objects in the scene (in wireframe mode) and then switching back to shaded mode - houdini immediatly seg.faults. If I load the scene and the switch the viewport to one of the, say, lights (see through) - I see a new picture for like half a second and then houdini seg.faults.

It's not that I want you to resolve these issues, but I am more playing a role of beta-tester. Hope this can help you, SESI, somehow.

tata

Ok, the more I work with Houdini under Debian64 - the more I experience different situations when Houdini crashes when working in shaded mode. A couple of times I played last with houdini - it was not just seg.faoulting but it was informing me about some “X11 wrong window parameters” or something like that, so I may suppose that the crashes have to deal somehow with the NVidia drivers.

Pagefan has suggested pasting my xorg.conf file - since it won't harm and someone might help, here's the file:

# xorg.conf (Xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type “man xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following commands as root:
#
# cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.custom
# md5sum /etc/X11/xorg.conf >/var/lib/xfree86/xorg.conf.md5sum
# dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Section “Files”
FontPath “unix/:7100” # local font server
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi”
FontPath “/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi”
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load “bitmap”
Load “dbe”
Load “ddc”
Load “evdev”
Load “extmod”
Load “freetype”
Load “glx”
Load “int10”
Load “record”
Load “type1”
Load “v4l”
Load “vbe”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “keyboard”
Option “CoreKeyboard”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc104”
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Protocol” “ImPS/2”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “NVIDIA 7800 GTX”
# Identifier “NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Default Card”
Driver “nvidia”
BusID “PCI:3:0:0”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “NEC 1770NX”
Option “DPMS”
HorizSync 30-65
VertRefresh 50-75
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “NVIDIA 7800 GTX”
# Device “NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Default Card”
Monitor “NEC 1770NX”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1280x1024” “1024x768” “800x600” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 4
Modes “1280x1024” “1024x768” “800x600” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1280x1024” “1024x768” “800x600” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1280x1024” “1024x768” “800x600” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1280x1024” “1024x768” “800x600” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1280x1024” “1024x768” “800x600” “640x480”
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen”
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”
EndSection

Section “DRI”
Mode 0666
EndSection

Hi MADjestic,

sorry for the late reply but been trying to figure out what could be wrong with your setup. I do experience some crashes with houdini now and then but i couldn't reproduce your problem. Your xorg.conf looks okay too. If you think it is a GL/Nvidia problem you could run glxinfo from an xterm. Should give a lot of info but the important thing is that it says somewhere at the top that direct rendering is enabled. I turned on Renderaccel in the xorg.conf file but i think that is turned on by default (Option “RenderAccel”). Just check the readme of the nvidia dirver in /usr/share/doc. You could also run the nvidia-settings program…

Hmmm i just hope your issue goes away silently ) Not the neatest way to deal with problems like this but uhm, it's solved then…

Pagefan

I had another idea that might be worth checking…Nvidia has it's own AGP driver and it uses this dirver unless the kernel loads it's own. You could check if there is a module AGPart running or could check your kernel config if it is compiled into the kernel. Also check if there is some dri module, get rid of this, you don't want it…Hope you can sort it out.

Good luck.