Whole screen flickers while rendering with Revit 2017

[Anonymous]

Hi, 

I have a problem when rendering in Revit 2017: in the rendering process, the whole screen (not just Revit window) goes black for a couple of seconds and then recovers (a long "blink"). It only happens while rendering with high resolution (300 DPI). 

I have an i7 4790k, 16 GB RAM, a 250 GB SSD and a GTX 1060 6GB (but I have also tried disabling the hardware acceleration). I have also tried to throttle the CPU at 90%, but I got the same results. 

Does anyone have any clue about the reason?

Thanks!!

[dzanta]

have you tried rendering on another machine to see if the issue is with the machine or the file itself?

[Anonymous]

Other machine and cloud rendering are OK

[dzanta]

so definitely issue lies with machine...

have you tried updating graphics driver?...I know GTX cards don't play nice with Revit (i have a 960 card and I get that issue too...but only once in a long while...rendering still happens and results are still good)

try updating the graphics driver to the original computer manufacturer driver first...if that doesn't work...then try updating with NVidia driver...they may be different.

[Darin.Green]

@Anonymous

Have you tried updating your graphics card driver by downloading it from the vendor's website?

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's a brand new card and drivers were updated yesterday. Also, the issue still happens when hardware acceleration is disabled

[dzanta]

is this a desktop machine?  if so, can you put in a different card and test to see if the issue is tied to the card?

[dzanta]

also,  just to rule out...send me the file so I can render it on two laptops I have (one has a quadro 5100, the other has a 960 gtx)...just want to rule out it isn't the file causing the issue.

[Anonymous]

It's a desktop but I don't have other card. Yesterday I tried the very same file on another PC and it works flawlessly. 

i don't know how can I send you a direct message, the page says I don't have privileges to send a message

[dzanta]

you should be able to click attach file below to attach the revit file.  I do not believe the issue is with the file based on what you said.  It sounds more like the graphics card or driver used on your machine.

try the default manufacturer driver and do a rendering to see if you have the issue...if you do, switch to the nvidia driver and try again...if you still have the issue, then the card may be faulty

[ToanDN]

Run a graphic card benchmark test and see if it fails at any particular
task. You should be able to find of these benchmark app fairly easily by
google it.

[Anonymous]

I used passmark and 3DMark as soon as I finished installing the graphic card, everything OK (couple of degrees more than I expected, but reasonable). Everything but revit rendering works perfect. 

[dzanta]

so if the graphics card diagnostic tool state the card is sound, then the revit software may be the culprit.

verify you have the latest build 2017.1.1

try a repair on revit

try a reinstall on revit

try a clean uninstall/reinstall if necessary (takes the longest)

[Anonymous]

I have made several test, and I can confirm is not the file, as it happens also with example files. I made a run with HWMonitor and I see 5% GPU utilization and 100 % CPU (the temp is stable around 70º). The problem is worse when I open other programs (Chrome, word, anything). 

Can it be related with resources management?

[dzanta]

if your hwmonitor shows little gpu usage, perhaps revit is not using the graphics card properly....since this is a gtx geforce card, right click on the desktop to go to nvidia control panel and ensure revit is set to use the gtx card...also, disable any motherboard based graphics cards via bios.

[ToanDN]

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@dzanta wrote:

if your hwmonitor shows little gpu usage, perhaps revit is not using the graphics card properly....since this is a gtx geforce card, right click on the desktop to go to nvidia control panel and ensure revit is set to use the gtx card...also, disable any motherboard based graphics cards via bios.

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@dzanta  I don't think rendering uses too much GPU horsepower.  That's for when you orbit or walk through the model in real time.

@Anonymous  What do you mean by "problem gets worse when open other programs"?  Did the blackout last longer or happen at a greater frequency?  Regardless, I think it's either CPU or RAM issues.  I think 16GB is pretty low for today standards.  Do the test okay computers have the same amount of RAM?

[dzanta]

interesting...when I do a rendering in revit on my laptops, both cpu and gpu spike to 100%...i used the gpu-z benchmark tool...

[Anonymous]

It happens more frequently.

Other pc has the same RAM (mine is faster though...), and frankly, I think the bottleneck is the CPU: RAM utilization has not been greater than 50 % in the whole rendering time. 

[Darin.Green]

@Anonymous

It's your graphics card driver, and possibly the use of a 3d connection mouse. I know you said, your driver is on the latest build. That said, try downgrading it to an earlier update.

If you have a 3D connection mouse or wireless mouse, disconnect it and use a wired mouse to see if the screen still flickers.

[Anonymous]

OK, a little bit more of data, because it has somehow gotten worse by doing a repair. I still have the "blinking", but now it's impossible to finish a render on high. I have two different behaviours:

    With HW graphic acceleration: the render gets stuck with no error prompt, but the percentage does not advance. When I close the render window, I got an error of the graphic controler (journal58, attached). 

    With no HW acceleration, about the same progress, the computer reboots (journal 62)

I will try tomorrow a fresh start by uninstalling and starting from scratch, but the behaviour seems pretty odd with a fairly standard equipment...