Strange Lightning-Tab behaviour

[Bjur]

Dear Support.

Nothing critical but I want to tell and ask you:

I recognised that TG 3 (latest version) never seems to come to an end at some point, maybe by preview related background calculations/processing.
The freaky thing is it only happens when the "Lightning-Tab" is active (blue marked, thus open) and a "Enviro light" source or node is involved in the scene.

A few days back I was getting annoyed a bit about how loud my PC was at a constant rate without heavy loads or doing any calculations over a long time.
I was seeking forums, reading tutorials and so on with TG 3 open in the background.

My CPU is a overclocked one, surrounded by several Fans. Thus when my CPU is working, the soundscape is hmnn, yeah, remarkable..

After the 3D preview finished the work with (4C) 8 threads, the Lightning Tab active, everytime 4 threads (but not evertime the same 4 threads BTW!) are working forever on whatever @ up to 50% load (i-2700K, 16Gig, Win 7pro, fully updated).

I tested the following:

- disabling and switching all lightsources and GI related lights and settings: Fails
- disable/enable shader/atmosphere/true lightning for the preview: Fails
- tested a fresh installation of TG 3 and was testing between different old TG 2.5 projects, even elder shared ones and new projects inclusive TG 3 presets after a reboot: Fails

Which helped was to delete the entire Enviro light node, making the Lightning-Tab not active or open a random context menu, then the calculations stops immediately.
But the calculation problem comes back right after creating a fresh enviro light node.
All other tabs don't have this kind of problem and when their preview is done I hear my beloved sound of "silence".. 

Is this strange behaviour somehow known or did someone encountered the same "problem"?

Greetings
Alex

[Oshyan]

Strange indeed. Does this happen on the default scene for you? It does not here. Testing with several other more complex scenes also does not show this problem. Hmmm... Are there any other factors involved perhaps? My system is actually quite similar to yours...

- Oshyan

[Bjur]

Will try another fresh installation but now with a new copy/download from TGs download site, hope this helps, I'll give a report.

* I need 20 minutes to download those 15MB..? Uff! ^

[Bjur]

Hi again.

So:

I erased and uninstalled everything I had TG 3 and TG 2.5 related, cleaned my registry and gave my PC a reboot.
Then I installed the fresh downloaded copy of TG 3 and added my licence key to the program files
right before the very 1st usage.
Then I was just opening TG 3 and it's start scene to see if it works now by just adding a new light, nothing else was touched.

Here my unlucky results:

[attach=1]

[attach=2]

[attach=3]


See picture 3, disabling temporary any new added or given additional lights didn't help in my strange case.

So I need to delete my actual projects 2nd (but for my atmosphere not that important) sun I guess and when working with atmosphere lightnings
and settings with additional lights generally I will have to wear some headphones with some music or foam earplugs for the time being.. 

I don't have any clue what could cause this behaviour and how i could get rid of it.
BTW I have a 580GTX as GFXcard with latest drivers but I don't see why my card should have anything to do with Terragens CPU
based preview render processes, especially with finished ones.

Unlucky me! ^^

Greetings
Alex

* EDIT:

- installing Terragen onto another HDD than the main HDD (C:) which is the only SSD = same result
- using the repair function from the original installation file after a fresh installation don't work either
- forgot to say the background process stops instantly by opening a random context menu but starts again by leaving that random context menu (if any additional light still exists)

[Oshyan]

OK, so apparently I had missed part of how to reproduce this. Adding the second sunlight does seem to cause it on *one* of my machines! I'm running 3.0.0.7.0 on that one. I'll try updating and see if it makes a difference, but at least I've gotten it to happen now. That's step one toward fixing it, hehe.

- Oshyan

[Oshyan]

So, the good news is this *appears* to already be fixed in the latest internal alpha. That's slated to eventually become a 3.1 release early next year. So relief is coming, not right away, but relatively soon.

- Oshyan

[Bjur]

Very glad to hear you was able to reproduce and address my problem, these facts will safe me definitely some brain cells!

So i don't have worry about my system or settings and just have to live with my hotheat of fan-crying baby when working with special light settings and situations yet. *Yarrrs..

Thank you for investigating time and efforts into this Oshyan.

Alex