Sorry, I'm a big dummy and don't even know what kind of graphics card I have. I looked briefly in the control panel - didn't see it - so at this point I can only tell you it's a Gateway laptop. It has a Gig of memory so I know that isn't the problem.

Let me ask this… are any of you using Windows Vista? If not, maybe I'll know that is the problem. And if Windows Vista isn't the problem, then let me ask this… what SHOULD I see when I click on ‘install a commercial license’? Right now it eventually brings up a box with a license number in it (& other garbage), but it give me no other options so I don't know what to do with it. I'll highlight it, and click on File, but there are no options in there. Ditto to View, which is the only other drop down box in this program. I've never had to deal with a license like this before, so I'm concerned that maybe it DOES work & I'm just too dumb to figure out how.

Thanks for you help!

I'm a big dummy and don't even know what kind of graphics card

Right click anywhere on the desktop and select the properties tab under settings you will see what graphics card you have. Trying to run Houdini on a vista laptop with 1gig of ram and no doubt the graphics card sharing the ram will be so slow … I suggest you read up just how much ram vista requires to run, its not far off a gig ..



r

Well I looked up the memory requirements before I installed it, and it was 512… so I thought I would be cool, but are you saying Windows Vista may have a higher memory requirement? Oye. :roll:

Anyway, I right clicked like you suggested, and I'm still not sure about the memory card but I did find out a lot of other information. I'm not sure it will help, but here is:

Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile Report


Report Date: 03/01/2007
Report Time: 23:31:13
Driver Version: 7.14.10.1147
Operating System: * , (6.0.6000)
Default Language: English
DirectX* Version: 10.0
Physical Memory: 1013 MB
Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB
Maximum Graphics Memory: 224 MB
Graphics Memory in Use: 94 MB
Processor: x86 family 6 Model 14 Stepping 12
Processor Speed: 1596 MHZ
Vendor ID: 8086
Device ID: 27A2
Device Revision: 03


* Accelerator Information *

Accelerator in Use: Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family
Video BIOS: 1313
Current Graphics Mode: 1280 by 800 True Color (60 Hz)



* Devices Connected to the Graphics Accelerator *


Active Notebook Displays: 1


* Notebook *

Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Display Type: Digital
Gamma Value: 2.20
DDC2 Protocol: Supported
Maximum Image Size: Horizontal: Not Available
Vertical: Not Available
Monitor Supported Modes:
1280 by 800 (60 Hz)
Display Power Management Support:
Standby Mode: Not Supported
Suspend Mode: Not Supported
Active Off Mode: Not Supported

* Other names and brands are the property of their respective owners.

I don't think your graphics card has the juice to run a major 3D app. You'll want to run it on a system that has at least a prosumer or recent NVidia card in it. Also, the *realistic* minimum memory for Vista is 2G.

Cheers,

J.C.

Oh yeah, yikes. I wouldn't struggle with this at all, you don't have the graphics memory for what you need. Your graphics card requires the main ram to run which will suck the life out of your machine.

I'm using an Acer laptop with an nvidia graphics card. I had to look very carefully for this since not only do I need a separate graphics card that doesn't share main memory, but to make sure the manufacturer didn't lobotomize the graphics card to increase battery life.
The vast majority of laptops that have separate graphics cards have their memory chops so the battery life increases. The manufacturers don't advertise this, so when you buy a laptop they go all big about what a great card they have in the laptop, not mentioning they've cheated you on the memory.

You might consider dual booting to a Linux flavour and running Houdini in linux. You'll get better memory management, but still limited because of the shared memory thing.

You should be able to run Houdini though. You can set an environment variable to revert Houdini to use Software OpenGL. But then again this is Vista and that OS is currently unsupported.

Worth a try. You want to set a Windows user System Environment variable:

HOUDINI_OGL_SOFTWARE = 1

Here's a link to a site showing you how to set a Windows Environment Variable in WindowsXP. It may be the same in Vista. Don't know. I do know that Vista supports Environment Variables though:
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877_11-5630303.html [articles.techrepublic.com.com]

OMG, it totally worked! Thank you Jeff in Toronto! I never would have figured that out in a million years, you are a total genius!