Terragen crashing during mundane tasks

Started by N-drju, April 04, 2021, 12:40:52 PM

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N-drju

Recently TG crashes on me from time to time when I change color values. This happens almost exclusively when dealing with the "default shader".

One of the reasons I can think of is the fact I have not updated my system for quite a while...

But other than that, I can't think of any reason. I use Blender, GIMP and DAZ Studio and none of these apps is causing any trouble. Could you please tell me, what is wrong? ::)
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune

On your new fast system? Do you have RTP on when you change values? I'm always very careful not to. And once in a few hours of intense changing of values, close and reopen TG to work along, as memory can clog after a while.

N-drju

Quote from: Dune on April 05, 2021, 03:22:37 AMOn your new fast system?
Yep. Not sure if this is memory though - I can put lots of objects into TG and work along.

It's the default shader and color picker that seem to be failing me occassionaly. Very strange. In any case, dxdiag shows TG app crash, every time it happens.

Perhaps it is the memory leak. But if I remember right, Matt said it has been, more or less, fixed.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Dune


WAS

It really is best to pause the 3D Preview / RTP before making changes. It's not very intuitive as the point is to see these live changes, but it literally has prevented all crashes from me that aren't something specific like canceling a huge population or heightmap generate.

I lately have been just X-ing out the 3D preview window altogether cause it still continually crashes with deleting default project nodes unless it's paused or not even on. I would love for TG to actually never open the 3D preview unless I manually do so. I'll still get occasional crash when I switch tabs, it opens 3D preview, and I'm already making changes to nodes. Which is why I try to keep it off, cause then it never crashes, and also not too bad a slowdown when hundreds of nodes.

raymoh

#5
In my opinion, many (crash) problems can be traced back to the "suboptimal" integration of the 3D preview. The preview almost develops a life of its own: Even if you have deactivated (paused) it, it will reactivate (without your intervention) at the latest when you have worked in the Node Network (with "+" display enlarged) and return to the standard view.
Also (at least for me) a run of the 3D preview with the "HD" setting usually takes longer (!) than a corresponding "low quality" render.
"I consider global warming much less dangerous than global dumbing down"   (Lisa Fitz, German comedian)

raymoh

Just experienced again: Generating a 3D preview (in HD) took more than half an hour (!), CPUs and fans at full speed. Terragen was hardly usable anymore. This does not seem to be normal behavior to me.
"I consider global warming much less dangerous than global dumbing down"   (Lisa Fitz, German comedian)

N-drju

An update, just to let you all guys know.

The crashes seem to have just subsided after some more hours of using TG. Could it be that my system just needed some time to "get used" to Planetside Software...?  :o

But I would also like to thank @raymoh, for his insights regarding the 3D preview. This window seems to indeed have a few "screws loose" and I have also experienced problems related to it, like;

1. The 3D preview window closing down in an, apparently, random fashion.

2. What was already mentioned - 3D preview running up, despite being paused. This leads to a rather wobbly behaviour whereas one has to unpause the 3D preview in orther to pause it... (experienced on the old system)

3. RTP not working at all in certain situations (black preview). Mostly after rendering, though it's hard to confirm.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

KlausK

@N-drju:

Regarding the RTP turning black I noticed this:

- it turns black when you crank up the strength of for example the sunlight very high.
Reflections, white values or whatever in the preview explode so to speak and then it turns black.

You can try to "Reset view camera position" under the preview window left hand side
or (this works for me in most cases) click >Reset<
"Reset the 3D Preview to basic configuration" on top of the preview window - next to the RTP button.

CHeers, Klaus

Since I do not fully understand what the RTP shows me anyways I gave up on using it.
What it shows very often does not look like anything close to a final render.
It would be useful for my stuff if it was able to show geometry changes...
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

Dune

Closing and reopening the preview area often changes the run or pause state of it, so you have to close-reopen again. That also works if it says it's finished, and it isn't. Wobbly, yes.

WAS

It's good to close it out and reopen it every so often. I notice if you're relying on the RTP like I've been doing for nebula (don't need to exit RTP for cloud seeds), that when you do go to exit RTP it will hang at "Exiting RTP Mode" or whatever it says, and in some instances, crash to desktop.

N-drju

Quote from: KlausK on April 14, 2021, 06:13:45 PMYou can try to "Reset view camera position" under the preview window left hand side

Resetting but the 3D preview window does the trick and the RTP unlocks itself. Thanks for the "reset" idea as such though!
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

icarus51

Hi all.

I confirm all these troubles with the preview, especially if HD is set. Also sometimes it lights up a dazzling white and then return to the real light level. Sometimes he crashes or slows a lot, rendering is much faster.
I thought was my PC but i see this problem is widespread.
The RTP also gives problems. I believe there is a bit  to work about these functions. :(

N-drju

Not related to the initial problem, but I have also experienced just what @KlausK was talking about.

I wanted to RTP some clouds and the real, rendered shading was nothing like the RTP indicated it to be. The cloud was milky white with very few shading. Yet, the RTP showed full-blown shadow areas in dark bluish-grey hues. Totally not like a final render.

Also, pretty much disappointed that this thread has not been visited by Matt yet.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

WAS

Quote from: N-drju on April 19, 2021, 04:07:54 AMAlso, pretty much disappointed that this thread has not been visited by Matt yet


We supposedly just got someone to deal with the spam, and even they are MIA. :( Seems spam was got to today, but had been there almost a week?