Unresponsive UI

[sjefen]

Hi,

I've noticed Terragen is really unresponsive lately. It's really frustrating to work with. Just changing one setting makes it freeze up for some seconds even if the preview is set on pause. Also if I populate some objects, they wont show up until I change my camera angle a little bit.
Is this just for me, or does anyone else also have this problem?



- Terje

[Hannes]

No, nothing like you described. Is it maybe the file you're working with? Can you upload it?

[sjefen]

I'm sorry. I can't upload it. It has some object I have paid for.
I'll test some more with a different scene 

[Dune]

I don't have that either. Maybe, if you have worked on a file for a long time, memory is clogged a little and you need to reopen the file for a fresh start?

[Hannes]

Sometimes it's also necessary to restart the computer. Especially when you have a lot of large size models.

[sjefen]

I've tried several times now with different scenes and it's OK in the beginning, but really doesn't take much until it gets really sluggish again. I should have enough memory to make it hold up a lot more, but I rebooted just in case and it did nothing 
Could there be something else I'm missing?

[Hannes]

Since no one else reported this problem it may be some memory issue with your system? I don't think, it's related to Terragen. I recently worked with the Kitbash 3D models, which are really large in file size, and up to a certain amount everything worked smoothly. Of course after loading everything TG was a bit slower, but I'm talking about 5-7 GB object files.

[raymoh]

Well, there are others who have this (or a similar) problem. E.g. me. The reason may be different, but the symptoms are the same. I'm running Terragen on macOS, with the "latest" Mac version 4.5.71. Since the update to Apple's latest OS, Ventura, Terragen is not performing at all. It has become very sluggish, clicks are only executed after (what feels like) seconds. After some time the preview runs amok and needs a lot of CPU, while the ventilation is running at full speed. As soon as the preview is closed again (forced), the whole thing returns to normal. As Hannes writes, sometimes only a restart of Terragen helps.
I hoped with a new Terragen update for macOS this would improve, but we Mac users have been waiting for version 4.6.xx for months now.

[WAS]

I was having this issue before I stopped using Terragen for indefinite period of time. It was getting too frustrating, to quote sjefen. Though I would say it was likely just me tired of my CPU's performance, and my RAM issue.

On PC I am using now, things a pretty fast, but the UI is jerky, stuttery still. Further more, there seems to be graphic issues now with the shaders.

[sjefen]

Looks like it may have been my computer. I think it just crashed.

I'm so sick of this. If it's the RAM again, I don't know what I'll do. It's the fourth time in a row my RAM is breaking down. I always get new ones for free, so that's not a problem, but it's so frustrating that this always happens. Anyone have any good ideas of what's going on? Or am I just a really unlucky person? Are there different types of RAM for different types of "jobs"? Like I'm always rendering something. Does that require another type of RAM or something?

[KlausK]

No idea what kind of RAM you use, but there is not really RAM for specific tasks.
You have RAM for Desktops or Servers, Non-ECC and ECC (Error correction). That`s it afaik.
Do you have a "correct" configuration of your RAM? Mixed RAM (different speeds, different size).

Or look at the "Default Path" settings in TG. Change them to save to fast a hdd, perhaps.
Are you saving to a network location? Latest drivers for everything? GPU, Chipset, etc?
Enough free harddisk space at all?

Get a program that monitors temperatures and stuff like https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
That gives you some clues about how your hardware is utilized overall (how much RAM is used, temps etc).
You can see how fast your RAM is filling up and if it is cleared again.

I don`t think RAM just "dies" because of being used.
Is it getting too hot? What about your Mainboard? Always the same with your "dying" RAM?
Is your PSU strong enough to handle the constant high power utilization when rendering so much?
That is what comes to mind atm.
Are you on Win 10?

CHeers, Klaus

[WAS]

No idea what kind of RAM you use, but there is not really RAM for specific tasks.
You have RAM for Desktops or Servers, Non-ECC and ECC (Error correction). That`s it afaik.
Do you have a "correct" configuration of your RAM? Mixed RAM (different speeds, different size).

Or look at the "Default Path" settings in TG. Change them to save to fast a hdd, perhaps.
Are you saving to a network location? Latest drivers for everything? GPU, Chipset, etc?
Enough free harddisk space at all?

Get a program that monitors temperatures and stuff like https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
That gives you some clues about how your hardware is utilized overall (how much RAM is used, temps etc).
You can see how fast your RAM is filling up and if it is cleared again.

I don`t think RAM just "dies" because of being used.
Is it getting too hot? What about your Mainboard? Always the same with your "dying" RAM?
Is your PSU strong enough to handle the constant high power utilization when rendering so much?
That is what comes to mind atm.
Are you on Win 10?

CHeers, Klaus

MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is about 8000 hours for consumer RAM, but this is also considering consumer usage. If you are near filling RAM for extended periods with lots of IO for rendering, you could be adding to usage and shortening that lifespan considerably.

At my old job we monitored uptime and for enterprise solutions, RAM was swapped when it approached it's end of perceived life to prevent catastrophic issues with clients.

That all being said, I'd say TG is not only heavy on RAM usage with IO, but also a little abusive with all it's crashing for bugs that haven't been resolved. TG is also aggressive with it's temp and old tiffs becoming corrupted and effecting sectors of the disk specifically relating to TG temp files. This has happened on 3 HDDs, and lost others completely without even being able to diagnose that I suspect is from similar. This was almost guarantee using a external HDD for windows temp. I've lost all my HDDs using temp on external when doing heavy TG work. I assume the render tiffs get corrupted through TG crashes.

Come to think of it, I have had to replace RAM in all my TG machines back to my Xeon and A10 in-between, with my last having a bad DIMM on Ryzen 2600 which was part of a costly pair I couldn't afford to replace as it was top of the line in heat sync and speed for DDR4.

[KlausK]

I did not know any of that. Nor did I encounter any of these errors or problems you describe. But my workload is not production heavy stuff. We can`t really tell how widespread this sluggish interface problem really is, can we? At least here are not a lot of people complaining. But I guess that also has to do with  " my workload is not production heavy stuff ". I assume most people here are fabricating smaller scenes.
Anyway, that is interesting.

CHeers, Klaus

[masonspappy]

If you can get your hands on a power supply that has at least 20% more wattage output than your current power supply , give that a try , even if it's only temporary.
In the past I've had issues on 2 different PCs that were running Terragen.  In both cases I ended up putting in a beefier power supply, and my PC problems disappeared.
No guarantee it'll fix your issues but it's a darn good place to start.  In my case I don't think Terragen really was the problem. But the software apparently pushes the hardware pretty hard
and exposes borderline issues.

[Doug]

if i set the Change Object Display Mode ( the blue cube) to Show as Textured
then i maximize the Node Editor to work in it, then minimize it
my Change Object Display mode changes to Show as Bounding Boxes.

it does it on a file i made, and a new default scene