Hello,

I'm trying to license the free apprenticeship version, but seen to be
having a problem which is not convered in the faq. I have installed the downloadable file, and try to run Houdini Master. Then the license administrator dialog opens and another dialog asking me to choose a type of licesne opens up. I select “install a non-commercial license”, and then a second dialog box starts to open, but then suddenly both boxes disappear and my nothing else happens. Its as tho the entire licensing routine is abruptly halted without an error message.

I have also trying manually entering a license that I had generated at the website. Again, as soon as I choose File, “Manually Enter Keys”, the license administrator window simply dissappears. Has anyone had any experience with overcoming this problem?

Hi Jason,

Are you logged in with administrative privileges when trying to install the license? If you are not, please try again as an user with administrative privileges.

Cheers!
steven

Yep, I'm the administrator on the PC. I just double checked in the control panel, under user accounts (I'm using WinXP). but the problem persists…

Hi Jason,

Please go to the Windows directory & look for a directory called "keys". If it doesn't exist, please create it & try to install the license again.

Cheers!
steven

I checked, and there was no directory called “keys” in the windows directory.

So I created this directory and then tried running the license administrator again. Same problem, no change unfortunately…

Hi Jason,

May I know what graphics card are you using?

Thanks!

Cheers!
steven

Hi Steven,

Currently I'm using an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 pro w/32MB. I know its not the recommended chipset, but I figured since I wasn't having the problems soem of the other posts mention, I hoped it was the source.

JasonA
Currently I'm using an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 pro w/32MB. I know its not the recommended chipset, but I figured since I wasn't having the problems soem of the other posts mention, I hoped it was the source.

For what it's worth, this thread might help you:
http://www.sidefx.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15 [sidefx.com]

But from my experience, even after getting Houdini to run on an ATI Rage 128, there will still be numerous graphical artifacts and unreasonable slowness. ie. it's not useable on an ATI Rage 128.

Well, I'll give that a try later on, (im in a render job right now) but do you really think thats the problem? So far it hasn't shown any graphics related issues (I thought at least), of course I haven't gotten very far with Houdini either.

I notice your hardware compatibility page only lists 2 ATI cards, neither of which are available anymore. Does this mean you no longer support ATI chipsets?

I will post a follow up later as to whether or not Edwards link/suggestion worked.

Edward,

yep, that fixed it. So what does this mean then exactly? All of the graphics processesing is now being handled by my CPU?

Also, I still have concerns about the compatible hardware list. Could you comment on my quation above? I'm currently considering purchasing an ATI FireGL RADEON 8700 (neither the FireGL 2 or 4 can be purchased from ATI, I think they're discontinued products..)

FireGL?!!!
I'd rather buy any GeForce 4 TI 4600 (currently around 250$) and make Quadro4 900 XGL
out of it
Read about it here http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1013385350 [xbitlabs.com]

According to this webpage, we support 3 ATI cards:
http://www.sidefx.com/support/system/index.html [sidefx.com]

Based on the webpage, I would recommend the 8800 over the 8700. We will also support the X1 when it becomes available to us.