Hi everyone,

I have Houdini apprentice and it crashes quite alot. It happens most regularly when i change the grid spacing, the view port layout, or the snap settings. Once it's crashed Houdini reports the same error when i try to open it up again. It works again after i've restarted the computer.

I'm on Windows XP professional.
My video card is an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 with, i think, the latest driver version, that's version 8.4.2.1. I just updated to this driver from an old one I got in 2003 to see if the update would fix the problems, but the same crashes still happen.

The version of Houdini I have is 8.0.474. I tried to get into Houdini a few years ago with version 5.5.36 but I didn't get very far because the same kind of crashes were happening.

I don't know if this is the kind of problem that anyone can guess the solution to, but if any of you have any ideas then i'd very happily try them out. If any other info might help then just say and i'll try and find it.

Houdini seems like such a cool program, apprentice is amazing, i have all the video tutorials, and the book and now i just want it to work!

That's very odd, I have a machine that has exactly that card and uses XP with no problems. However I don't use the latest driver. Unfortunately I can't remember that exact driver version you should try. But I think if you search this forum you will find it mentioned somewhere. Sorry I can't be more help at the minute.
If you don't have any more luck I can find it tomorrow for you.

Thanks, I think I found the thread you're referring to. I'll download driver 77.56 now and report back.

you recommended 77.56 for the guy in the other thread, but he had a quadro card. I think the closest driver to 77.56 for my card is version 77.77. I'll install that one instead. I hope this is right. Here goes!

Well driver 7.7.7.7 hasn't seemed to change anything. I read something about an ogl-software = 1 thing, I'll try and do that this monday evening. If houdini runs fine after that, does that mean my problem is definitely a graphics card issue?

Thanks for your help

Actually I seem to be using 61.82 at the moment and they seem fine.
But yes if you turn off opengl support and run in software mode you should be able to tell if its the drivers or not.

Hi again, thanks I'll try that driver next.

With regard to the ogl software environment variable: I've never set an environment variable before, this is how far I've got. I right click my computer then go to properties and to the advanced tab and click on environment variables. Now there are two places that it seems I could enter HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE=1. Either in “user variables” at the top, or “system variables” underneath that. I don't want to put it in the wrong one cos I don't know if it could mess up windows, so I decided to ask here: Should I enter the environment variable in the user, or the system area?

I have a couple of other questions if you have time. In houdini help, it says that if I enter hconfig in a text port, it should list the environment variables that are already set. I gave this a go but the response from houdini was “Unknown command: hconfig”. This seems a little odd. Is it a bad thing or is it just saying this because I haven't yet entered any environment variables for Houdini?

Lastly, it says in Houdini help that you can also set environment variables by going to the command prompt and typing “set NAME=VALUE”. So I went: Start-run-cmd then at the msdos style thingy I typed “set HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE=1”. I thought that this would make an environment variable appear in one of the lists on the environment variable tab on My Computer, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. Is there some other information I should know to get this method to work?

Again thanks for your time, its definitely appreciated.

hm, 61.82 is missing from the nVidia drivers archive. 61.77 is the closest so I've gone with that one.

Doesn't matter user or system will work and neither will mess up windows. You can always delete it afterwards.
If you set it as a user and log on as someone else it just won't be set anymore thats the only difference really.

hconfig runs in a houdini command line tools window not the textport.

Thanks. I put the variable in and Houdini ran really slowly, so I know I did it right now. But houdini still crashes in all the same places.

So I guess it could be any single piece of hardware, or any piece of software on my computer, that's messing up houdini. That sucks.

If I have to clean my hard drive and start again, then I'd like to go over to linux, but well I duno. I think I'll get into linux sometime, but I'll have to get on with some other stuff for the time being.

That's pretty weird about “hconfig” working in the command line tools. The help file is pretty specific about it working in the textport, and doesn't mention the command line tools, but you're right ofcourse.

The dodgy help sentence is in help-reference-environment variables. The second Green Tip on that page, if you're interested:
“Use the hconfig command in the textport to show which environment variables you've set and their current value.”

I typed hconfig in the command line tool, and it listed some other environment variables that don't appear under My Computer, for instance HSITE and HOME. How can environment varisbles exist but not appear under My Computer?

All these questions must get annoying for you, maybe I should buy a book about windows or linux, or just buy a computer that works.

If you're running WinXP, I strongly recommend going back to 77.56 (esp if you're using a GeForce as opposed to a Quadro). Ironically, the only way to get that version is from the nVidia download drivers pages, choose Graphics Driver, Quadro, WinXP.

Thanks for all your advice, it's very much appreciated. Unfortunately driver 77.56 wouldn't install and I'm officially giving up on my computer, but not on Houdini.

My pc's a thorough mess for a couple of reasons and I guess it's pretty likely that's why none of this stuff is working. So I'm going to reorganise and format my hardisk, maybe see if i can sort out a dual boot with debian. Got some work to do too, so like the man said, I may be some time.

Thanks again