I have the Lightwave version, and Juanjo has done an incredible job. Looking forward to the running on Houdini!!

Any news on stability of new nVidia drivers for Titan on Win7-64?

when I run Houdini 13, I get the warning about 314.22. However, problems with the driver may be related to win8 rather than win7 (which I'm running).

The http://odforce.net/wiki/doku.php?id=graphicscardissues&#amd_catalyst [odforce.net] seems to indicate only problems with win8 also.

So, maybe the warning, if I'm on win7, is not correct?

BTW - I've seen many, many posts about crashes in Chrome & Firefox when viewing YouTube with higher versions than 314.22. I strongly suggest anyone using more recent versions disable hardware acceleration in both (possibly in VideoLan.org VLC also).

using about:config in Firefox: webgl.disabled, noscript.forbidWebgl

twod
From the system requirements, H13 requires Nvidia drivers version 320 or higher, beta drivers not recommended.

What about the recent Nvidia drivers isn't working for you?

Honestly, for each driver update, I spend a few hours reading on the forums I mentioned in a previous post about serious issues like BSODs when browsing just normal usage - and avoid upgrading at all.

Many revert back to older versions or way back to 314.22 (which is what I'm still running on Win7-64), and lose interest in even trying. There are a lot of unhappy people (although many of them seem to have older cards).

And as many are gamers (which I'm not), they are strongly motivated to try the new ‘fixes’.

An ‘official’ SideFx help page on drivers outlining which of the latest drivers are the best and worth trying with Win7-64 and Titans (I have 2 Titans in my box) or for Win8, etc. - would be be very handy for other folks.

This could lessen the reported bugs on Houdini that are due to video drivers and make your life easier?

I'm just not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about nVidia's latest drivers - and am curious about what kind of results Titan users are getting with different versions (and whether using Win7 or Win8)?

BTW - as I'm sure SideFx must test Houdini with different nVidia drivers (they need to know if it's a driver problem or a software bug), it would be really useful to have ‘official’ feedback as to which drivers to use on win7 or Win8 with the most recent video cards?

possibly a dumb question, but …. should one un-install before installing the daily build?

sami.tawil
you are welcome twod

aslo i do not have crash using browser(until now)
my 80 m poly sphere was in the background and my pc was running without a glitch while on the houdini forums and a couple of youtube page open.
with drivers 331.58 win 8.1 pro

The browser crash ‘feature’ has been in builds for many months now, including the WHQL (not just beta). Thjs is one reason I've kept my rather old 314.22 drivers installed as I've had zero BSOD's with Win7-64.

You might scan the threads on 331.58 or earlier versions. You may be able to disable this feature by webgl.disabled & noscript.forbidWebGL in Firefox. I forget if this stops the crashes, but … I remember reading about how to disable a feature, so … I'm hoping this is the one.

I'm unsure how to disable in Chrome.

After all this time the Titan has been out, a bit depressing how buggy the drivers are.

Here are a few places to check for issues on 331.58

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=382617 [forums.guru3d.com]

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/624802/geforce-drivers/official-nvidia-331-58-whql-display-driver-feedback-thread-released-10-21-13-/ [forums.geforce.com]

http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=2043243 [forums.evga.com]

I'll have to look thru these and see if the issues like crashing when using a browser are totally fixed (hopefully).

Thanks for the reports, please post if there's any change or instability noticed. Of course, win8 will behave differently than win7, so … when I can find some time, I'll take the plunge on win7.

Which drivers are proving the most stable with the Titan on Win7-64?

I notice nVidia has released a 331.40 beta that should fix a few issues reported in the previous WHQL.

The Houdini installer for 12.5.556 said:

WARNING: The 310-314 NVidia drivers are very unstable with Houdini. You may experience random lockups and crashes. Upgrade to the 320 series or above, or downgrade to 304.

I've been running 314.22 without any issues with my other 3D apps, but … this is my first time to install Houdini.

BTW - I have two Titans in my box, hopefully this won't cause any issues?

DaJuice
…

Works for both characters and hard-surface modeling.

Hmm, idunno. A lot of the hard surface stuff I've seen from sculpting apps looks like it suffers to some degree from blobs-with-creases syndrome.

I think I know what you mean.

Probably depends on the skill of the artist? BTW - nice laptop you did in Houdini!!

Here's some smooth hard surface tutorials for zBrush.

http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/lesson/panel-loops/ [pixologic.com]
http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/lesson/vehicle-design/ [pixologic.com]

and here is a speed sculpt of ‘blobs-with-creases’ in zBrush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zLuSgT3YyY [youtube.com]

I'm very impressed that Houdini seems to offer stability as a ‘feature’ (I could get very spoiled with daily builds and bug fixes within a few days!!!) and am hoping to move from 3ds Max & Lightwave.

I do a lot of mocap, so being able to re-target inside MotionBuilder is very important.

Is it feasible to rig & skin in Houdini, export to MotionBuilder to re-target motions and then import back into Houdini?

I've been rigging in 3ds Max using the CAT rig and skinning using Bones Pro http://www.bonespro.com/. [bonespro.com]

Another option might be to continue rigging & skinning in 3ds, re-target in MotionBuilder - and then bring that into Houdini?

I'd appreciate any comments on a workflow with MotionBuilder, and whether it might be possible to continue using 3ds to rig & skin?

Instead of modeling with polys, try modeling with 3D Coat http://3d-coat.com/ [3d-coat.com] or zBrush http://pixologic.com/ [pixologic.com] (many use both together as they tend to leapfrog each in specific features. (3D Coat for surfacing and UVs, zBrush for retopology, both have unique advantages for modeling).

Works for both characters and hard-surface modeling.

Then retopologize using zRemesher (zBrush is the winner at the moment, but 3D Coat is currently working on a new beta that should close the gap).

If you happen to be modeling architecture, then LWCAD on Lightwave http://www.wtools3d.com/ [wtools3d.com] or the port of LWCAD to 3ds Max http://www.futurarch.com/ [futurarch.com] is the way to go.

cpb
Looking very promising:
http://raytracey.blogspot.com [raytracey.blogspot.com]

Killer if they get Alembic i/o in there…

Brigade is a project OTOY (Octane) are working on for the game market.

Apparently a lot of the research ends up in Octane.

I'd guess the end-result will be real-time previews in Octane - and massive development $$ for OTOY as I think the game market is larger dollar-wise than the entire movie market.

Here's some info on Octane and Brigade:
http://www.fxguide.com/featured/octane-render-realtime-ray-tracing/ [fxguide.com]

and an even more recent article on all the major renderers (including Octane)

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-state-of-rendering-part-2/ [fxguide.com]

It seems that Maxwell is available now for Houdini 11 & 12:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/products/maxwell_render_suite/plugins/#/houdini [maxwellrender.com]

However, it looks like it's CPU based - and they brag on not requiring “expensive GPU's”:

http://support.nextlimit.com/display/maxwelldocs/Maxwell+Fire+-+Fast+Interactive+Rendering [support.nextlimit.com]

I own RealFlow and they have added some GPU support to part of it, so hopefully this will change.

I can certainly attest that GPU's are less expensive than CPU's - and a whole lot easier to setup than a large render farm. And with 128GB RAM on my dual xeon, the memory per thread available for rendering is 4GB - 50% less than available with each Titan's 6GB.

I'm sure the next geometry shrink will provide even more GPU memory and GPU power.

I recently purchased Octane Renderer - and am very impressed.

One of the advantages of an unbiased renderer is that it takes far less time to setup lighting. You don't have to move this parameter up because you moved that one down. It's far simpler.

With 2 Titans in my box, and the ability to add 4-8 more using an external chassis - the speed improvement is really massive.

I'm looking at Houdini now as a possible alternative to 3ds/Maya and Lightwave (love those daily Houdini builds and the almost immediate fixes I've read about - an alternate universe from the reality at AutoDesk or Newtek).

Not having a plug-in for Octane is one thing holding me back, so I'd like to add a +1 to any effort to get this implemented.