Is anyone else experiencing frequent crashes of Houdini that lockup the Mac and also log you out? Doesn't happen with simple scenes but when actually doing anything beyond creating simple primitives this is fairly constant.

The system I am experiencing this on is a mac pro config is one 4K display, one thunderbolt display, 24 cores, 64 gig of memory and about sixty terabytes of disk. Doesn't seem to happen so much on iMac and not at all on Mac Book Pro.

Also AMD FirePro D700 with 6144 MB VRAM

Maya 2016 is much more stable on this configuration, never crashes. Really never know when Houdini is going to crash and log me out.

Interested if others are experiencing this.

VR

Lars

Look into you /tmp/ directory for a crash report.

Never seen a log out happen, ever.

The majority of OsX crashes are OpenGL related. Nvidia Apple drivers are meant to be quite good, the NvidiaWebGL drivers are fairly good. AMD is hit or miss, discreet is good, whilst the mobile ones not so I believe.

You may in the end need to boot to Windows or Linux to get the most stable Houdini system on the Trash Mac Pro.

MartybNz
Look into you /tmp/ directory for a crash report.

Never seen a log out happen, ever.

The majority of OsX crashes are OpenGL related. Nvidia Apple drivers are meant to be quite good, the NvidiaWebGL drivers are fairly good. AMD is hit or miss, discreet is good, whilst the mobile ones not so I believe.

Thanks for the info. I figured it was OpenGL related, thanks for confirmation. I will check tmp directory for a crash report.

VR

Lars

Also check the Console, /Applications/Utilities/Console.app, and look for the error that is causing the logout. Easy to see chronological.

MartybNz
Also check the Console, /Applications/Utilities/Console.app, and look for the error that is causing the logout. Easy to see chronological.

Checked that, not too much there. I did find that disabling the Houdini internal help system seems to reduce the Houdini not being able to exit. Nothing but problems with that help system, I won't say what I think of it. I would like to have a zip file of the Houdini help files and open them up in a local browser but SideFx doesn't support that for whatever reason.

VR

Lars

Yes, set this:

HOUDINI_EXTERNAL_HELP_BROWSER = 1

in the houdini.env file

~/Library/Preferences/houdini/15.0/houdini.env

MartybNz
Yes, set this:

HOUDINI_EXTERNAL_HELP_BROWSER = 1

in the houdini.env file

~/Library/Preferences/houdini/15.0/houdini.env

NICE! 8)

That works! The inability for Houdini to exit seems to be tide to the internal help system.

Are these Houdini “game cheats” documented some place (beside hconfig)?

VR

Lars

Some of these problems were caused by something in the houdini preference files. I deleted the old preference files and restored a backup I made and a problem with the inability to exit houdni after changing any preference and applying it seemed to go away. Submitted a bug report.

VR

Lars

The hconfig -H shows all the env variables with descriptions.

Throwing away the preferences folder does solve a lot.

Issues come up ad hoc, so I can't think of any other general cheat sheets, but by far OsX has the most issues, due mainly to buggy and slower GL 3+ drivers. OpenCL also is not so great on OsX too.

Unfortunately to solve most issues switch to Windows or Linux as they have the best and most bug free OpenGL, they also allow OpenCL CPU to work. OpenCL CPU can then work with all the system ram. The downside of Windows is memory management, Linux has the best, using jemalloc, OsX's native one is great or might use jemallac too, which affects sims. It's a mixed bag for sure.

jemalloc
http://www.canonware.com/jemalloc/ [canonware.com]

MartybNz
The hconfig -H shows all the env variables with descriptions.

Throwing away the preferences folder does solve a lot.

Issues come up ad hoc, so I can't think of any other general cheat sheets, but by far OsX has the most issues, due mainly to buggy and slower GL 3+ drivers. OpenCL also is not so great on OsX too.

Unfortunately to solve most issues switch to Windows or Linux as they have the best and most bug free OpenGL, they also allow OpenCL CPU to work. OpenCL CPU can then work with all the system ram. The downside of Windows is memory management, Linux has the best, using jemalloc, OsX's native one is great or might use jemallac too, which affects sims. It's a mixed bag for sure.

jemalloc
http://www.canonware.com/jemalloc/ [canonware.com]

Excellent information! I am finding workarounds, just need to feel out the system issues, just like Maya in the old days, i.e. goes with the territory. Testing now to see if some of the crashing was due to preferences file. The help system on MacOS is definitely bad juju.

I have X11 running on my mac to run UVLayout. Has anyone booted Linux houdini using this approach: http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/05/09/how-to-install-linux-applications-in-os-x-a-complete-walkthrough/ [simplehelp.net]

VR

Lars

The problem with Fink is that it will use Apples own OpenGL drivers so I'm not sure it will offer any advantages over a native OSX install.

http://www.finkproject.org/doc/x11/inst-xfree86.php [finkproject.org]

The only route to go is Bootcamp as this is the only option where you'll be able to download card manufacturer drivers. And Windows is a far easier Bootcamp install.

VMWare Fusion is another alternative is they introduced OpenGL 3.3 in their latest version. It's hit and miss though. Any AMD card with an M at the end is unlikely to work as they're not discrete cards. Definitely worth downloading the demo though.

I expected Fink would not work since these issues revolve around OpenGL. I have VMware and Windows ten including bootcamp. I have had very bad experiences with Windows dating back to NT. Hence I keep away from Microsoft. Linux has licensing issues unless you get a bunch of addins from third parties. I will work through this somehow, there is always a way.

VR

Lars

Jonathan Moore2
The problem with Fink is that it will use Apples own OpenGL drivers so I'm not sure it will offer any advantages over a native OSX install.

That's correct, it's not possible for a third party to hook into the OpenGL API and replace it the way you can on Windows. If it was, I'm sure Nvidia's web driver would have done this long ago and we'd have full, stable OpenGL 4.5 support on OSX with Nvidia GPUs. I keep hoping that Apple will wake up and realize this is the way to go. Even allowing vendors to install their own GL extensions would be a huge step forward.

For what it's worth I've been running a bunch of experiments on an old 27" i7 iMac (mid 2011) with a 2Gb AMD Radeon hd 6970m so that I could advise a studio I work with that still have a bunch of these installed. These beasts still have a fair bit of performance in them (especially single core) and those Radeons peform well from an OpenCL perspective (for smaller less memory intensive sims).

Firstly follow all the viewport performance advice here:

http://odforce.net/wiki/doku.php?id=graphicscardissues [odforce.net]

Then disable selection highlighting under main GL viewport options.

When things are set up in this manner Houdini is usable by mainly using ‘laser as a selection method on edges and having the ’select front facing only' enabled then convert to prims or points (whatever's required). If you're after a primitive group selection converting from edge to primitive will always select extra boundary prims but these can easily be de-selected our via CTRL box select.

All a bit of a faff I know but if your stuck on OS X hardware with an unsupported GPU it at least provides a usable workaround.

Swapping to an external browser for the help system as advised earlier helps no end when it comes to stability on OS X too.

Good tips, thanks Jonathan!

twod

Jonathan Moore2
The problem with Fink is that it will use Apples own OpenGL drivers so I'm not sure it will offer any advantages over a native OSX install.

That's correct, it's not possible for a third party to hook into the OpenGL API and replace it the way you can on Windows. If it was, I'm sure Nvidia's web driver would have done this long ago and we'd have full, stable OpenGL 4.5 support on OSX with Nvidia GPUs. I keep hoping that Apple will wake up and realize this is the way to go. Even allowing vendors to install their own GL extensions would be a huge step forward.

Hey twod, what are these alternate drivers from Nvidia accomplishing? Just CUDA/OpenCL support? http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/100824/en-us [nvidia.com]

My issues, as far as I can determine, were due to a corrupted Houdini preferences folder and not OpenGL at least on the Mac Pro.

Notwithstanding, If it doesn't run on a non-Microsoft supported platform such as Mac or Linux it doesn't exist as far as I am concerned. Microsoft technology has resulted in nothing but tech agony since I first started using it in 1993. I met Dave Cutler at Digital Equipment Corporation, who was the VMS guy there and then did NT for Gates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler). [en.wikipedia.org] Cutler was difficult to work with and viewed Unix as a waste (WRONG Cutler ha ha ha ROFL).

When I was a lead research scientist and department manager at a giant defense contractor (GTE-Government Systems had at one point 80,000 employees, split into big research and engineering divisions at Verizon and General Dynamics when the cold war ended), I reported to the VP of engineering Eric Ellingson, who formerly was the technical director of MITRE corporation (http://www.mitre.org/). [mitre.org] He told me then Microsoft is toy technology not suitable for serious applications. I didn't listen to him, which was a huge mistake. What he said then is still true today. Microsoft is a tax on productivity. End rant. I hope SideFx invests heavily in non-Microsoft.

VR

Lars

goldleaf
Hey twod, what are these alternate drivers from Nvidia accomplishing? Just CUDA/OpenCL support? http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/100824/en-us [nvidia.com]

I believe it's for the Quadros that Nvidia sells as aftermarket add-ons to the older Mac Pro's (eg, cheese-grater MPs, not the trash cans). The main appeal of the MP was its ability to be customized, which Apple basically quashed with the new MP.

But other than that, it looks like CUDA support is the main purpose of the web driver.

Jonathan Moore2
The only route to go is Bootcamp as this is the only option where you'll be able to download card manufacturer drivers. And Windows is a far easier Bootcamp install.

Installing Fedora on a mac is also very simple.
As far as i know, that's the ONLY distribution out there who fake the system and create a boot partition recognised by OSX, just like with Windows. (Plus fedora is way cooler than windows)
Just add a new disk or make some room on the existing one and install.