Hello All,

I recently purchased Houdini 9 Apprentice HD. Unfortunately, I can't do much with it as it crashes very shortly after I start the software. The crash usually happens after I complete an action such as adjust the size of an object etc. Unfortunately, I'm unable to be anymore specific as to when the crash occurs as I haven't been able to complete a great deal.

The build I'm using is 782 (64 bit) and my System specs are as follows:

AMD FX-57
3Gb Ram
Asus A8N 32 Deluxe Mobo
GTX 7900 Graphics Card
Win XP 64 bit

I've attached an image of the error I get when Houdini Crashes in the hope that someone can help as I'm keen to get to grips with this fantastic looking software.

On another note can anyone reccomend the Magic of Houdini Book even though it's for a previous version of Houdini?

Thanks in advance & Regards,

I definitely can recommend the book. >Sorry, can't help with the windows stuff.

Pagefan

The most probably quilt is a video driver. Try to upgrade or unfortunately downgrade it. WinXP 64 machine in general is much more stable then 32bit machine in Windows.

I can also repeat again: if this is only possible try to work on Linux. The distance in stability between Win and Linux version of Houdini - specially Houdini 9 is enormous! H8 was quite usable on Windows (though less stable of course). H9 is almost unusable on Windows. I tried it on three different machines and the number of problems is still a quite high. Pity.

Unfortunately the image doesn't tell us anything. You need to submit the log file of the crash.

probbins
Unfortunately the image doesn't tell us anything. You need to submit the log file of the crash.

WOuld it be possible for youto tell me how to access tthe log? Sorry, but I am a complete noobie with Houdini!

Thanks in advance.

SYmek
The most probably quilt is a video driver. Try to upgrade or unfortunately downgrade it. WinXP 64 machine in general is much more stable then 32bit machine in Windows.

I can also repeat again: if this is only possible try to work on Linux. The distance in stability between Win and Linux version of Houdini - specially Houdini 9 is enormous! H8 was quite usable on Windows (though less stable of course). H9 is almost unusable on Windows. I tried it on three different machines and the number of problems is still a quite high. Pity.

Weird, I've been running H9 at work on xp 32 bit for a few weeks now and haven't had a single crash yet.

I agree though these things are generally related to drivers. On vista I found upgrading the driver for H9 was very successful, whereas in the past as you say down grading to the correct supported driver was often best.

sutcliffe

probbins
Unfortunately the image doesn't tell us anything. You need to submit the log file of the crash.

WOuld it be possible for youto tell me how to access tthe log? Sorry, but I am a complete noobie with Houdini!

Thanks in advance.

Unless the crash was a really bad one you should have a crash log in your user temp directory called crashlog_Administrator or something like that. The temp directory is the same place that the crash hip file gets saved to.

Simon

SYmek
Weird, I've been running H9 at work on xp 32 bit for a few weeks now and haven't had a single crash yet.

I have H9 running on a Vista 64 machine and I find it shockingly stable compared to previous versions on Windows. Vista 32 seems to be pretty stable as well.

MichaelC
I have H9 running on a Vista 64 machine and I find it shockingly stable compared to previous versions on Windows.

I find Houdini's stability and performance on 64-bit windows (XP in my case) to be comparable to that on linux.

Dragos

you guys have some magic machines, right? I struggling here with random crashes all the time on three different machines. I wouldn't blame laptop with ATI but my PC with GT 7300 is striking also. I stop even bother about it. Wait for 9.1… I thought.

SYmek
you guys have some magic machines, right? I struggling here with random crashes all the time on three different machines. I wouldn't blame laptop with ATI but my PC with GT 7300 is striking also. I stop even bother about it. Wait for 9.1… I thought.

On my machine (dual Xeon, Intel 5000X chipset, GeForce 8800 GTS) I find Houdini not really usable for production on Windows 32-bit (especially when it comes to rendering). For checking examples and doing various uncomplicated stuff it's fine.
On XP 64 Houdini is very fast and stable. Renders anything, caches stuff etc. Opens huge geometries with no crashing.
Same goes for Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit. There's no difference when it comes to actual performance/stability, compared to win 64 (I'd actually say that on XP64 it deals a *little* bit better with huge geometries), but you have the added convenience of the Linux env, better render farm workflow etc.

Dragos

Well after one full day of troubleshooting, i came to a conclusion. There is a conflict btw houdini x64 version and nvidia driver (x64) 93.71. After i installed the newest nvidia driver, 163.75, the problem went away but just as i thought my nightmare is over, my quicktime (i tried various version from old one to the newest one) start to have problem, crashing with fatal error.

Anyway I went back to 93.71 because i need to use quicktime. I tried the houdini 32bit version and to my surprise it is pretty stable. I think my deduction of the incompatibility is true. Maybe other people have similar experiences.

Hope the sesi will work out the problem of the x64 version with nvidia. Houdini 9 is so sweet i hope it will be rock stable.