Just installed Houdini, hoping to learn.

I get this really weird thing though. When the window opens up, everything looks good, but the moment I click on a tab or a menu, all the text immediately around it becomes garbled up and impossible to read. After a couple of clicks the UI is totally messed up. It looks like a font related issue… any ideas?

I'm using windows 7 on my samsung Chronos laptop with ATI radeon graphics card.
cheers,
Jordan

Usually, the first place to start is drivers. Are you using the recommended ones on the system requirements page?

Ah- funny you should say that. I've tried updating my video drivers, with my laptop it's possible to set an application to “high performance”. After doing that, the GUI looks fine now.
So the original problem is solved.

BUT**

it's still very unstable!
I tried following the tutorial. Make a grid > apply terrain deformation. Crash!
Tried a couple of times, same thing.


I then got a Segmentation Error, just when I try to open it. By deleting my documents/Houdini folder, I can get it to open again.

But this install of Houdini is only 30 minutes old and I'm having these serious issues with it? I simply cannot apply a “Mountain” deformation to a plane on a fresh install of Houdini.


** Edit ** I see I need Windows 7 SP1 installed, so attempting that. Failing that, I may try Kubuntu next.

After installing SP1, it now seems to work OK, but after 5 minutes of usage it tends to crash randomly. (doesn't immediately crash when making a deform node)

I get a
“Fatal error: Segmentation Fault” before it terminates.


Full text:
Failed GLMakeCurrent with error 6: The handle is invalid.

Failed GLMakeCurrent with error 6: The handle is invalid.

Failed GLMakeCurrent with error 6: The handle is invalid.

6688: Fatal error: Segmentation Fault

Small update.

It only happens when I click on any menu or change numeric values in an input field on my second monitor.

So in the meantime I guess I can work around by using my small laptop monitor and not my HD second monitor. Or try it under Linux Mint.

Are the 2 monitors using different video cards? Intel and AMD etc

I've seen it before on OsX with Nvidea and AMD.

MartybNz
Are the 2 monitors using different video cards? Intel and AMD etc

I've seen it before on OsX with Nvidea and AMD.

One graphics card, with monitor on an HDMI out… though it's a switchable graphics setup between the Radeon for “high performance” and the onboard for regular stuff.
Setting Houdini to “high performance” did fix one issue I had, but even if I use *just* the external monitor as the only display, it still crashes the moment I open a menu. Strange

I am seeing this same exact behavior. Opening menus on my second monitor causes Houdini to crash. I've tried several drivers to no avail (including Catalyst-14.11.2Beta and Catalyst-14.4).

My Info:
Two identical AMD Radeon R9 280X
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Houdini 13.0.582

Error in Shell:

Failed GLMakeCurrent with error 0: The operation completed successfully.
Failed GLMakeCurrent with error 0: The operation completed successfully.
Failed GLMakeCurrent with error 0: The operation completed successfully.
508: Fatal error: Segmentation fault

Error Log:

Crash report from carl; Houdini FX Version 13.0.582
Traceback from Mon Dec 08 23:50:39 2014
Caught signal 11

+0xefb31f23
+0xefb30e89
+0xefb30cc9
+0xefad95e5
+0xe508bf41
+0xe508f2bb
+0xe508bc57
+0xe5031fd6
+0xe502fcf2
+0xe502fd98
+0xe525b5f1
+0xe525bcaf
+0x3f581bb0
+0x774459ed
+0x7767c541

Has anybody found the specific cause, solution or better work-around than avoiding menus on the second monitor? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-c