About Iray Render Crashes

frBan

It's been a while since I upgraded to version 4.12.
I had sometimes noticed some freezes and crashes in my Iray renderings, but I hadn't worried, thinking these bugs would be fixed soon. Then I stopped using DAZ for a while, for lack of time. But I'm back today. And so are the crashes.

Some of my scenes always crash with Iray rendering. The interface doesn't respond anymore, then the mouse gets stuck, leaving only the hard reset solution. From what I've read on several forums, I'm not the only one.

These scenes can contain anything, it's not a particular asset, it's more like when you go over a limit: two characters, their clothes, an environment. In the end, it's not much, on a 2 years old computer with 16 GB of RAM and a Nvidia graphics card with 4 GB more.

More worryingly, the old scenes, which worked very well before, crash as well. Most of them.

I know what some of you will say:
you should update your video card driver, your OS, blah blah blah.
I've been a developer for 25 years, I know all that. And I also know that it doesn't usually solve... anything.

Really, I'm exasperated. So I gave myself a simple, basic test. I finally found an old version 4.11 to download, and I did it. By the way, I find it absurd that DAZ doesn't offer its old versions for download. Let's move on.

So I have 2 versions on my computer, the official 4.12, and an old 4.11. And guess what? All the scenes that crash violently on 4.12 will pass without any problem on 4.11!

So my problem isn't my computer, isn't my video card, isn't my OS, isn't my assets, it's DAZ 4.12. And that's Ockam razor telling me.

So I'd like to ask DAZ two things:

• Make available for download old --stable-- versions on your site. It's frustrating to be completely blocked by bugs and not be able to go back.
• Fix the performance problems, memory leaks and crashes, which are numerous (did I really need a fourth way to download my assets, knowing that I could already do it manually, with DIM or with Daz Connect?).

Why would I spend so much money on assets if I can't even render them?

I like Studio. Well, to be precise, I like what I do with it, but I like less and less the time I waste in an obscure user interface, with non-existent documentation, and renderings that strain my nerves.

 

 

RexRed

Daz 4.12 requires slightly more horsepower because it does more, it has more features and because computer hardware has evolved exponentially.

It is like saying my old tv used to be able to pick up stations with this antenna.

There are probably bugs here and there but what you are experiencing is the new features that we all love in the later versions of Daz coupled with very low specs on your computer hardware.

I don't work for Daz...  I can also understand why Daz does not support the older versions. Windows does not support Windows 7, Vista or XP and they do no support updates for these old operating systems due to the enormous cost associated with doing so. ...  Most of the Daz figure resources coming out today will not even load in computer systems made to run the old versions due to improved graphics. With your system you will be lucky if you can load one 4k model and get it to render. So sadly no, it is not worth buying things that you cannot even render. Every person here is faced with the same option of having to upgrade hardware. Yes it is frustrating and very expensive. 

Yet, the new software when coupled with better hardware has backward compatibility meaning you can load your old projects with no problems or many bugs, better features and higher quality resources.

I understand you are frustrated. It is time to upgrade if you want a premium experience today just as you have had to to do with your tv.

You may not like hearing that but that is the case. The more you spend on hardware, the better your experience will be with the myriad of exciting new models and features.

I put myself in the poor house buying my new pc and the models but now I am very pleased with the results.

I hope this helps FrBan.

fastbike1

Which version of 4.12? From 4.12.1.76 on, the minimum Nvidia driver is 440.33. Have you checked your driver version? If you render on 4.11 but not 4.12 that could be a reason. Several of the more recent Iray updates have changed the minimum driver requirement.

Hard to generically say 4.12.XX.XXX is broken when some / many / most people don't have rendering issues. For myself, I have not had Iray render crashes acrooss different machines, OS, GPUs