Software Crashing/RAM Poll

[dichroic101]

My inquiry is to find what hardware is working the best and [maybe] what's not. Those of you who's TFP software is running fine without crashing...
How fast is your processor?
How much RAM?
How much on-board RAM does your video card have?

I have:

• AMD Sempron 2800 processor on an ASUS A7V400-MX board with integrated VIA graphics
• 1 GIG of RAM
• (drivers are up to date)

Not the fastest out there, but certainly not the slowest either.

On occasion I'll have to spend the day in PhotoShop CS2 with a lot of extra filters (Norton's Internet Security running in the background and a browser or 2 open) and never had a problem with hanging and crashing like I'm having now. I've checked my WinXP Event Viewer and the only warnings and errors listed are from TFP.
I thought someone had written that turning off some features might help this problem. However,  I don't like to be limited like that. Upgrading is part of computing and I'd rather upgrade then deal with it crashing, though I would like to know what and how high I would need to go in order to use the entire program as planned.

It's a really cool program (using the trial version until my disk arrives) and I'm getting used to working with it, but I would love to be able to continue with my project without having to reboot.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys - any and all help is appreciated!
T.

[Allan Chesney]

I am not a computer hardware expert by any means, so I do not fully understand these things, however, for comparison, I am using a laptop with Intel Core2 CPU, T7200 @ 2GHZ. 2Gig RAM (+250 Graphics) with Windows 2000 SP4.  I think that may be marginally better than yours but I cannot operate with Hardware Acelleration on all the time otherwise it crashes in at least one place I know of - generating Photorealistic images using Radiosity.  This is my major area of interest in the program so I have been concentrating my testing in that part of the program - there may be other crash points that I am not aware of as yet.  I am on holidays for the next three weeks so I am hoping to have a bit of a play!

With Hardware Acceleation off I have no problem but moving around is slower and jerky - not really a problem either unless you are trying to demonstrate the programs abilities to others! So I have it off unless I am showing things to someone.  HA was a problem on this laptop with all previous versions of FloorPlan also. A few months back I bought a new high spec desktop, thinking that it would be OK on that but again I had to turn HA off.  My much older, lower spec PC at work, will operate with HA on with no problems!

So...  If you need a new PC get one but... from my experience it will not necessarily mean you can have HA on.  If you have another older PC you may find that it will be OK.  It seems to relate very much to the combination of processors/drivers/operating system and other PC idiosyncrasies than on the software itself. I have other software that has similar problems also and have to turn the HA down on the PC itself to stop them crashing.

I would try turning HA off and see how you get on, maybe some more RAM if you can and, as a last resort ,get a new PC, but that will not necessarily solve the problems as it did not solve mine - you may still need to have HA off . Or... go to the scrap yard and pick up an older PC and it may be fine! Incidentally, I have not installed TurboFLOORPLAN on the new desktop yet as it has broken down(!!) - wont run hardly anything (not even the Windows Start button) at present, so it is going in for surgery, while I go on holidays with my laptop (and wife of course!).

Allan

[mcpruitt]

You may not like my setup but here it is.  Currently I'm running Turbofloorplan in WindowsXP through Vmware.  This is so I can run it on linux.  My vm is configured to provide just 512 meg ram and I believe the video is only provided with 8 meg ram.  As limited as this may seem TFP seems to run just fine.  I havent' tried any complex rendering and this may be where I will hit the wall and need to consider running on native Windows.  My machine is equipped with an AMD Athalon 3200 64 processor (2.2 gig mHz) and I have an nVidia ti4200 video board with 64 meg ram. But as I said Turbofloorplan is running inside a vm.  This control of what XP see's may be the reason I haven't seen it crash.  I do know in checking the preferences window that HA is checked but a note next to it says that it could not be enabled.  This no doubt is due to the fact that Vmware provides very little video resources.

Hope this is helpful,
MCP

[rgathje]

   I have a E-Machine with an AMD processor, 1.5 gig of ram and 256 meg Nvidia card. It is running WindowsXP. I don't have any problem with TFP but I am just a hobbist and haven't done anything to really test it. I also installed TFP on my Toshiba Laptop. It is a Duel Core 2.2 with 1 gig of ram and 256 shared video. It is running Vista. The only problem I have had is when I run the 3d render it gives me an unknown error but doesn't lock up. It just gives me a bunch of lines for a render. I have tried turning acceleration off but that doesn't seem to make a differents. The speed on both PC's is acceptable compared to the other graphics programs I run.

[dichroic101]

Thank you all so much!!
All Your information is appreciated and has been extremely helpful; with it I'm pretty sure if I just upgrade my graphics card it'll be smooth sailing.  (which is going to be way cheaper than having another computer built -*whoo hoo- happy dance!*)

... plus, hopefully anyone else encountering these problems will have something to compare their hardware to 1st, before giving the software the evil-eye.

Happy Rendering!
T.

[Jack Zimmer]

I strongly suggest using Nvidia graphic cards!

My local computer builders frown on any other. Remember that a card great for 'gaming' is not neccesaryily the best for CAD applications. Check with a knowledgeable source.

When I built new 3yrs ago I could have gotten the 5600 series but it was recommended that I use the Ti 4600 128, as it was stronger for CAD. I did, I saved $$ and it is still 'up there' in quality with some of the later version.

Z

[Shonner]

TurboFLOORPLAN Pro 12 renders just fine when I load up homes from 3D Home Architect Deluxe 6.  But it crashes if I try to render the sample homes from TFP12 itself.

I'm hoping a patch will be released to fix this.

[Shonner]

I got TFP12 rendering the sample homes now without crashing.  It looks like TFP12 corrupted its own global settings while converting older BLD files I was rendering.  TFP12 lost track of its Projects folder which it needs when calculating the Sun's location before rendering.  It had nothing to do with the video card I use, which is an AGP ATI Radeon X1650 Pro using Hardware Acceleration in TFP12's settings.

I'm loving this program better than version 6 of course.  I just need a much faster computer to do radiosity now.

[TKHolmes]

So I'm not the first person to run into problems rendering in 3D Real View. I just got TFP a couple of days ago and went through the quick start tutorial. When I went to render the camera view per the instructions, I also got Unknown Error, clicked ok, got Unknown Error again, and a preview containing vertical colored lines. The first error appeared during "Calculating Shadows," the second at "Done."

I'm running Vista Home Premium on a rebuilt system with 1 G RAM and a 2.8 GHz processor, plus an Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS and a Gateway 18" LCD at native resolution. Looks like this is an actual bug. Otherwise, I like what I've seen. Maybe this time I'll be able to actually design my perfect house (and perhaps do the same for others.)

[Doug.S]

the first thing to check when having rendering problems is with h/w acceleration "on" and "off"

many people find HA "off" works better

search this forum for this subject (render, HA, etc.) and you will find many issues and answers which may help you

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi TK,

Could you please email me your file that had the 'Unknown' rendering error?

Also specify your machine info and the rendering mode when the error occured (Basic or Advanced)

please send to

jkzimm@charter.net

and I will test it and forward it to the developers.

thanks,

Jack

[Allan Chesney]

I just tried radiosity rendering for the first time on my repaired Desktop and no go!  With HA on or off made no difference.  Did not crash, just did the polygon count and then stopped. It just diplayed the unrendered image.  Basic Raytrace is OK.

I suspect they have not restored the PC to its former glory, as I no longer have dual screen capability, my Nvidia control panel no longer exists and when I turn HA on I get a message saying "OpenGL is not being initialised..." so they have done something wrong - back to the shop!

Thankfully the laptop carries on merrily!

Allan

[Allan Chesney]

Well I have had the desktop looked at again and they had not installed the Nvidia drivers.  It now has the very latest but it has made no difference to the Advanced rendering and makes not differnece if Hardware Acelleration is on or off.

When I click Advanced and start Step 1, it does a polygon count while displaying the background image, then after a couple of seconds simply displays the unrendered image.  The progress bar remains blank and it never goes to step 2. I cant even go back to Basic rendering - the only option is to close the Real View window.  Basic rendering works OK.

I have gone through every setting and compared it with my laptop, which works perfectly on Advanced as long as HA is off, and all settings are exactly the same.

The PC is Win XP SP2, Pentium (R) 3GHz, 1GHz RAM, Nvidia graphics with latest drivers as mentioned before. Following the rebuild the only other software on the PC is Microsoft Office. It is running with nothing else open.

Any ideas anyone?

Allan

[Doug.S]

Yesterday I experienced the same problem of advanced radiosity render not proceeding thru all the steps (like 21 up to 106 of 300)(HA off), basic renders OK...but the final image result is terrible.

It is a problem with the file tho....as other files still render OK.  I'll try today to render the same file on my laptop to see...but expect the laptop won't render correctly either because the file has something corrupt. If different, I'll report back.

File/repair "worked" in that it ran and changed some things but render results are the same: bad....but you should try that too...maybe more than once.

So my suggestion would be to try with a new simple file, perhaps a sample provided by CadSoft, and any old file that used to render OK or renders OK on your laptop.

A very long shot would be that there is an anti-virus or other security program interfering....or a background programs running in start-up you are not aware of....do a ctrl-alt-del one click to open task manager to see the long list of processes running...most needed for windows, but some not required.

As Jack has said, apparently ATI video cards have more troubles than Nvidia cards.  My laptop has an Nvidia and runs HA just fine. My desktop has an ATI card and HA is OK for design but falters at rendering because cursor gets lost unless I repeatedly click it....both PCs are XPhomeSp2 with all latest updates...laptop has lesser processor (both P4) and 768MB RAM compared to desktop 2GB .  On the other hand, FP and TFP are the ONLY graphics apps that have render problems and I have at least 6 other actively used 3D render programs and graphic display programs are even more and I run full HA on everything else...that tells me TFP programmers are weak on HA skills.

[Doug.S]

I'll try today to render the same file on my laptop to see...but expect the laptop won't render correctly either because the file has something corrupt. If different, I'll report back.

You may think I'm crazy...but here are the results of further testing my seemingly corrupt (for adv renders) file:
(it is this problem file:   
http://forum.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,92.msg796.html#msg796  )

Copied file to laptop....exact same render problems

So 1 by 1 I deleted stuff....final conclusion: and "issue" of one light fixture and a shower stall.....delete them both and renders OK  (but had to turn sunshine on to get light)

With light fixture deleted...the shower stall generated light...repeatable (undo redo for delete/undelete)  (now I can't remember with shower gone and light in place...I tried so many combinations)

Sounds crazy to me (shower generated light from its floor/walls)...but clearly started as I was adding the "spotlights" in an adjoining room.

So now I'll go back to the original file and just play with the shower and lights.......also appeared to be a window and/or sun on/off but I did tests with those and resolved them to not be the problem....tho with a dark room (no real light source; even tho at times I had the sun on and no ceiling in place and could see sky)....radiosity renders stopped at 3 of 300....very confusing to separate what is the cause even by changing only one item at a time.

let the testing (de-bugging) continue.....