crash of tfp 662

[cdtupper]

I tried a low quality rendering on very large model I'd had problems rendering before. I reported it to Envisioneer a while back, which may have caused the bug fix for the memory leak when running for a long time, it used to bomb after about an 8 hr runtime.  This time it happens a few minutes into the rendering. 
OS vista 32 bit updated about a week ago.
Video intel bear lake B on the gigabyte g31m-e2sl mb w/4gb memory
Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   TFP14PRO.exe
  Application Version:   14.0.0.662
  Application Timestamp:   4a29dd98
  Fault Module Name:   Helios32.dll
  Fault Module Version:   6.0.4.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:   47c8e4e9
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   0002b829
  OS Version:   6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   4105
  Additional Information 1:   41e2
  Additional Information 2:   525325ee1bb958d1489581c088e43486
  Additional Information 3:   786e
  Additional Information 4:   4331af6cb7c687c6f93a2e0492dde1d0

[Allan Chesney]

I have rendered some very large models using Vista 32, without any problems.  However there was an issue with build 624 where it crashed while rendering, if Hardware Acceleration was on.  This has not been reported with later builds and 662 seems to be fine in that regard, but it may be worth trying it with HA off.  Being a large model it may be pushing something too far.

Also it may be worth trying the File / Repair Project - just in case there is a corrupt element (usually a wall join). These can cause a crash while rendering too.  Save under another name first just in case. It will delete corrupt elements, so a corrupt wall removal could cause the disappearance of floor/ceiling etc depending on how they were inserted.

Allan

[Draft Patrick]

Hi cdtupper,

Sounds like a videocard interference. Is your system integrated with the videocard (onboard) or do you have a motherboard + videocard?
Anyway, first step--> once you updated your OS a week ago--> mandatory--> update the drivers of your computer, specially your videocard.

Pat

[cdtupper]

The video is integrated into the motherboard. Intel G33/g31 express chipset.

What does Hardware acceleration have to do with Helios? I've read the code, a bit inefficient, I've written a much faster version using techniques anyone who's been around computers for a while can do. Amazing how inefficient some of the modern code is.

Everything is totally up to date now and still the problem. ie up to date as of everything Microsoft has on their site as of last night. No recent video updates, unless it came a few weeks back with the service pack. Plus I tried it with acceleration off. Also a new board and recent OS upgrade and reinstall due to MS & Intel not supporting the old board's audio.

The model hasn't been worked on for a while and did render before the upgrade, just took hours as a few lights. ie a large shopping center sized area, and industrial space and has maybe 60-80 lights turned on. It just would not render completely ie process all the lights. ie it crashed with some weird error after about 8 hours at step 474.

It won't even ray trace the model now, before it would, but was too bright. Now I get a blank window and no output. I was using windows 2000 Pro.

The old error was
Application Error : The exception unknown software exception (0x40000015) occurred in the application at location 0x781346b4.

[Draft Patrick]

Hi

Regarding your questions
Acceleration--> Most of the video cards are designed for gaming, therefore, for the average card, speed comes first and precision after. In other words, if during a computer game you are "chasing a monster"   certainly, you are not interested in the exact shadows of the castle's walls, or the texture's effects--> your only interest is speed. However, if you are a 3D designer, you need accuracy, even if the rendering takes more time. This is the reason why, with several video cards, to get good rendering results and accuracy you need to reduce the speed (accelerations) . This is just as answer to your question, but I don't think that your problem is related with accelerations

About your problem - Onboard video cards are almost useless for rendering purposes. There is a good reason for this: onboard video cards share the processor, therefore (as explained above) the same processor is used for calculations and rendering. With complex surfaces, this process is almost impossible. In other words, if you have just walls, roofs, etc, the system will work, but if you have furniture, columns , molding , etc, (lots of polygons) the system will crash. Now, why it worked before the update and is not working now? --> because the processor had less info to process, therefore it had more resources to render. Now, the processor is busy with the Vista elements, and therefore, it has less resources for rendering and in consequence, it is crashing

There is a resource that may work --> change the color settings from 32 bit to 16 bit

Let us know about the results

Pat