Intermittent computer crashes with particular scene; help?
RenderPretender
Posts: 1,041
Hi -
I have been rendering this morning... three scenes with the same character, the third being slightly different in terms of clothing and props. All three appeared fine in the Aux Viewport, and all rendered fine. However, when I tried to preview the fourth scene in the Aux Viewport (it's the SAME scene as the third, but with the character posed differently), DAZ has crashed the computer THREE times. I'm completely stumped as to why one scene can be previewed and render fine, but the same scene with the character in a different pose consistently crashes the computer... not just DAZ.
It should be noted that I render in Iray using CPU only, with generally smooth operation. There are some references in the log today about updating the graphics driver, but it seems odd that only one scene would be affected. I can post part of the log if someone can give me an idea of what they need to see.
Thank you.
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Comments
Does your fourth scene contain any of the following: dforce clothing in a sitting position or squenched into a severely bent joint (shoulders, elbows or knees), fibermesh hair or fur (on an outfit), strand-based hair, a higher subdivision on the base figure? If the hair/fur was not very visible in scene three but is in scene four, that might cause a load on the computer. I think I've seen seen dforce clothing crash a scene when forced into a position where it can't comfortably drape itself on the outer surface of the figure, but it tends to be instantaneous, not allowing time for the user to save it in that state and try to reload.
Well, scene 4 - the one that crashes - has nothing that's not in scene 3, which I just loaded again and it previewed fine in a matter of minutes. I did get rid of a dForce clothing item earlier today because it was nothing but trouble. I did have denoising on, but I'm on CPU so I may as well turn it off. I'll do that and then try scene 4 again. Very strange.
Also, I keep getting this as the last log line right before a lockup or computer crash/reboot:
2019-07-17 16:15:07.934 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\cloud\dzcloudtasknotifier.cpp(178): peer performed orderly shutdown errno=0
Scene 4 just locked the computer again in the middle of preparing the scene in Aux preview. As noted earlier, Scene 3 was fine. Utterly mystifying.
Update: Interestingly, I tried an actual render, and it's proceeding beautifully and without issue. It's the Aux preview that refuses to cooperate with regard to this scene. I just can't make sense of that.
Well that error isn't the cause of the crash. I also CPU render, can't GPU render on a 7 year old generation 3 intel laptop, with 16GB RAM.
Usually when it crashes during scene prep before the 1st written render iteration it is almost certainly because of running out of RAM.
My guess is you are using DAZ Studio 4.11 and reposing the scene also means you are rendering from a different camera or angle and/or that has exposed more surfaces to render and you either:
a) run out of RAM
b) have exposed a bug in DAZ Studio new in version 4.11
You're indeed correct in that I reposed the character in the first scene, and then saved it over top of (as a replacement for) a subsequent scene. I used the same camera, but repositioned it. I could understand having run out of RAM the first time, but the Aux preview crashed the computer three times. The actual render, however, proceeded without incident. Whatever the issue is seems directly related to the use of the Aux viewport.
Well in your further clarification it sounds as if you've turned on the "iRay Preview Mode" for the AUX port. If you do the DAZ Studio supplied tutorials I know that one of those tutorials does have the DS user turn on iray preview mode on the aux viewport.
I'm confused. I thought Iray preview mode for the Aux port came on by default when you select Iray in the port's dropdown. I wasn't aware that you could turn it on or off. What would be the point of having an Aux port to preview renders otherwise? Maybe I'm confusing nomenclature or something. I just open the Aux when I want a preview, and close it otherwise. But sometimes it wreaks havoc for no apparent reason.
Update: I discovered that one of the two characters was dialed up to a SubD level of three for both SubD and Render SubD. Once I addressed that, the Aux port began to work as expected. I'm guessing that the level of HD in the scene was too much for my little rig. Thanks to all who offered an assist.
Also, sometimes a reboot of DAZ, or even the whole computer, will do wonders! I run render after render until eventually DAZ will crash or my machine might lock up but I reboot and reload the same scene and it renders just fine. My guess would be the video/GPU memory needs to be refreshed/wiped. Back when I used to render with VUE there was even a menu item to flush video memory, so I know that's a real thing!
I render at subD 3 all the time but my viewports are always set to drawn at subD 1 using "texture shaded". So with subD 3 done in a viewport you crash DAZ Studio with an out of memory error because since it's the viewport it must keep the geometry available and ready to manipulate. If you instead do a external window render you can render at subD 3 (and higher) and since the viewports are no longer available for you to manipulate while the external window render is ongoing you don't run out of memory.
If you CPU render you don't want to iRay preview render is what it amounts too. Just make a bunch of render preset sizes for small value resolutions as presets - I have 720x1280 and the already available 1280x720 as my test render preset sizes. Even have old VGA style sizes of 640x480 and 320x200 and so on I've made & saved. Sizes that generally will give a good quick render so you can preview (can't use the viewport while rendering but these small sizes render quickly anyway).
Reboots are not optional in my case. They are forced by computer lockups and crashes. Rebooting does not solve this issue.
I don't understand what you mean by "external window" render.
I'll have to try your render size preset suggestion. I have never actually saved one as a preset before, but I'll set one manually and try it. Thank you for your suggestions!
Render to a seperate window that is not either your main viewport or Aux viewport windows. It is one of the options when you render a scene. It is like undocking a DAZ Studio tab in a way.
Ah, I actually do that as a mater of course, but maybe I need to try it at smaller size as you suggest..