Hello.

I am going to buy a new pc soon and I want optimize it for Houdini.

I have used Houdini in linux for years. But always I have had a main question without response:

What is the best Nvidia Linux driver version for Houdini?

… and, Any tricky parameter in xorg.conf file for optimal performance?


I will use Ubuntu 64 bits, NVidia Quadro FX 3500 and a Quad Intel, just in case somebody needs this information.


Thanks a lot!

The only caveat I would add is that Houdini doesn't work with the advanced capabilities of AIGLX, so no Beryl or Compiz. Turn off all the fancy desktop functions.

The only modifications I've made to my xorg.conf in Ubuntu 7.04 64bit are commenting out all the tablet stuff, disabling composite, and adding CIOverlay On. I also turn off vertical-trace in my nvidia-settings to speed things up a bit.

I'm using the latest drivers from Nvidia's site. 169.7.

I'd like to hear suggestions as well. There's a lot of settings for nvidia drivers that I haven't experimented with yet, and my performance is still not quite up to par with Nvidia's windows implementation.

I too just started using 169.7. Already I've run into a problem where the last texture used continues to be applied even after texturing is turned off, so my confidence is not high.

Some persons say that they have problems with 1xx version serie.

I also have had problems with 97.x version, OpenGL viewer interaction.
So I dont know if exists a concrete version without problems.

Houdini linux version is faster than windows, though I use windows for smooth viewer.

1000€ graphic card for this. It's very painful.