Re:Tips on Running VRED on a Notebook

[dawn_mcardle]

Sorry for a posting a new topic.  The "Reply" button won't let me reply to the thread started.

I was trying to fix my driver because Displacements make VRED crash, but now I've made it worse and Displacements aren't working at all.

I have a laptop with a Quadro 3000M graphics card, Windows 7, 64 bit.

I can't find the right option for downloading a driver for this configuration.

I tried Quadro ODE Graphics Driver, Quadro Performance Driver and Quadro Partner Certified Driver- I'd think the 3rd one would be it, since it directs me to choose Autodesk, but there are no application options here for VRED.  The one for Maya and Showcase said "not compatible" as well as the other Download Option types. I'm not sure how to get back to the driver I had that at least works with Displacements sometimes.

Please advise!  Thanks.

[michael_nikelsky]

Did you set a program profile for VRED so it actually uses the Nvidia driver?

Other than that: The 333.11 Driver has a VRED Profile and should work fine.

Kind regards

Michael

[dawn_mcardle]

By setting a program profile, do you mean to go to the Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings and Select a Program (AD VRED Pro) and click Add, (then choose "VRED Pro Virutal Reality Editor"?  If yes, I did.  If not, then where is this?  And yes, I downloaded the 333.11 driver.

[michael_nikelsky]

Yes, that´s what I meant. If this doesn´t work could you provide us an example scene that causes the crash?

One thing about the displacement in VRED: In order to deliver good and fast results the mesh you apply it to should have enough triangles to work with. VRED does not subdivide any triangles for displacement, so applying a high resolution texture to a simple two triangle plane will result in terrible performance. In generell, the more triangles the mesh has, the faster the displacement results will be. If your mesh does not have enough triangles, you can manually apply a subdivision to it using the scenegraph->edit->geometry->subdivide geometry options.

Kind regards

Michael

[dawn_mcardle]

Hi, Michael. Sounds like a good suggestion in theory, thanks- but no, still crashing.  I could send you my scene, but I started over with a primitive torus, just to eliminate any other factors.  You could do this yourself:  Created a primitive torus (default).  Subdivided with Max Edge Length= 2 (very dense now).  Applied tire material with displacement.  As soon as I increase the displacement height and/or check Use Accurate Silhouetees in OpenGL and tumble around- Crash .  I tried the same process with a plastic material and a different texture file- same results.  I will be switching to V2015 next week.  Might my problem be fixed?  No sense troubleshooting if there are improvements in the next version.  Thanks.

[michael_nikelsky · Accepted solution]

Ok, I can reproduce the issue, but I am not sure if we can really fix that. If you have a lot of triangles in OpenGL the performance will suffer a lot and combined with the expensive calculations of our displacement algorithm the frame rate drops to a point where the driver decides that it is crashed and cancels the calculation to keep the operating system stable.

The displacement algorithm we use is mainly suited for raytracing and its main goal was high quality displacement. Due to its complexity OpenGL and GPUs in general don´t work very well with it at the moment, that´s why the "use accurate silhouettes" are turned of by default. We are considering alternatives for OpenGL but at the moment there is no solution for this issue. If possible, i would therefore recommend to use Raytracing in the CPU rasterizer mode if you want to use displacement mapping on detailed meshes with accurate silhouettes. 

Kind regards

Michael

[dawn_mcardle]

Thank you for working with me on this issue.  Yes, displacement is working correctly with RT on.  It's good to understand the limitations of the software and how best to use it, so one does not troubleshoot needlessly and so that I teach it properly.  I am relieved it is not a driver issue related to my particular setup.  Perhaps it would make sense to remove the "in OpenGL" next to "Use Accurate Silhouettes" and somehow add a note, "Raytrace Only" next to that and Displacement Height?

[dawn_mcardle]

Michael,

You helped me with a graphics card issue a while ago.  I'm hoping you can help again.

I've switched laptops.  Now, I have a Quadro K5000 M.  I downloaded the Nvidia driver 340.84 and followed your instructions to select the High- Performance NVIDIA processor.

My problem is that when you open VRED Pro 2015 SP3, the black/grey dome is "striped", looks like a moire effect.  (see image)

Please assist in showing me how to correct this.  Thanks!

Dawn

[michael_nikelsky]

Hi,

these are banding artefacts that happen because your display only has 8-bit of color depth. With gray environments this is happening quite often and there is not too much one can do about it. One thing you can enable is the "Improve Color Depth" option in the Display Tab in the Render Settings. This performs some dithering to reduce this effect but I am not sure how good this works with the default environment. 

Kind regards

Michael

[dawn_mcardle]

Thanks, Michael

DISabling Improve Color Depth helps some.  The bands are visible in the Render Window as well as output renders.  It's more apparent with the grey dome, but I'm also seeing it in mapped .hdrs.  Are you saying that my monitor and graphics card are incompatible?  Nothing more can be done?

[dawn_mcardle]

In case anyone else runs into this, it is a graphics problem related to automatic updates. 

We were having this banding problem on one Dell laptop and a black dome issue on another as well as transformation issue (see my post "backwards transforms") on a third. 

There was a handful of steps that needed to be done (someone else did this, so I can't tell you what, exactly), but since we turned all updates to manual, the problem has been resolved.  Surely someone else is running into this???