Preview freezing

[j meyer]

I have noticed that the preview is freezing when you do lots
of test renders.You can still change parameters between renders
and do more test renders.But once is preview is frozen it stays
frozen.When I close the program it shuts down as usual,but right
after it has closed two messages (1 after the other) pop up saying
that TG's exe has stopped working.
The same messages pop up on pressing the reset preview button.
(before closing the program in this case, of course)
Noticed this behaviour in the last three versions.
Not a showstopper,but I thought you might wanna know.

[jaf]

I've seen the same thing.  Sometimes I make a change that I expect will kick off a new preview render and it doesn't.  I think (but will have to recheck) that forcing a re-population will free it (start the preview render.)

Also, every once in a while I'll see a flicker in the preview window, even in pause, where I think something updated but I don't know what (because I'm not expecting or concentrating on that window.)  Might just be a bounding box or something that updates and not really a problem.

Something I have been wondering about is the alpha/beta testing. I think it's currently being done, and for good reason, by expert or very experienced users.  Maybe recruiting a few inexperienced users would find problems the experienced user automatically avoids (not saying that's the case with this thread.)  Just a thought.

[WAS]

I've seen the same thing.  Sometimes I make a change that I expect will kick off a new preview render and it doesn't.  I think (but will have to recheck) that forcing a re-population will free it (start the preview render.)

Also, every once in a while I'll see a flicker in the preview window, even in pause, where I think something updated but I don't know what (because I'm not expecting or concentrating on that window.)  Might just be a bounding box or something that updates and not really a problem.

Something I have been wondering about is the alpha/beta testing. I think it's currently being done, and for good reason, by expert or very experienced users.  Maybe recruiting a few inexperienced users would find problems the experienced user automatically avoids (not saying that's the case with this thread.)  Just a thought.

I've been able to fix with by resetting the preview. However, occasionally that will crash TG, so remember to save!

[Oshyan]

Thanks for the reports guys. I think the most important thing to start with here is to try to eliminate graphics driver issues. This is the most common source of such issues. So first, are you all running nVidia graphics cards? Can you post your specific graphics cards and driver versions, if possible?

Does there seem to be any particular commonality to what triggers these issues? j meyer, you said "doing lots of test renders" makes it happen. You mean actual "press render button" renders ("full renders" as opposed to 3D preview updates)? Are you seeing the 3D preview pause during your full renders in every case? Does anyone else have any common threads they're seeing that may be causing this?

- Oshyan

[Dune]

I have 3 points, which I've mentioned here and on the alpha forum before.
1. Sometimes only half the screen updates, while the other (left) half stays in course triangles. Probably just after moving the pen, never nailed it exactly.
2. Sometimes it won't update to the end (even if you wait), but resumes after changing a number, or doing another change.
3. Sometimes TG crashed zooming in or changing the preview of objects, but that was only before I went back to a previous Nvidia driver. I don't have that anymore.

[j meyer]

Yes Oshyan,full renders are what I meant.
GTX 550Ti and driver 344.75,you might remember that I asked about
known issues lately.
I had that freezing issue with the old driver,too,in fact it was one reason
I wanted to try a newer one.
And yes,the preview pauses during a full render.