Houdini is a procedural system that allows artists to work freely. Enabling them to create multiple versions of their work and providing them with the ability to share their workflows with colleagues simultaneously.
Contents
5 Reasons Why Houdini keeps crashing
- Insufficient system requirements
- Unsupported Graphic Card
- Outdated Houdini Version
- Incompatible 3D Audio Driver
- Intel OpenCL Driver Errors
5 Fixes to stop Houdini from Crashing
We’re gonna quickly run through 5 Fixes and tips to have your Houdini software up and running!
Fix 1: Crash due to Intel OpenCL Driver
Open the crash log. You’ll find these logs here
Windows: C://Users/UserName/ AppData/ Local/ Temp/houdini_temp
If the crash log shows you anything with the Intel OpenCL driver listed. The creators of Houdini suggest disabling this driver.
A lot of devices come with Intel HD graphics as a default.
To temporarily disable the OpenCL driver; launch Regedit and edit the Windows registry.
The key is SOFTWARE\ Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors
This should have keys for both the NVIDIA driver and the Intel driver. Removing the Intel key should cause the Intel driver to stop loading and help resolve your Houdini crash.
Fix 2: Houdini Crash due to 3D Audio Drivers
If you have Nahimic or 3D Audio drivers installed it could sometimes cause Houdini 19.5 to crash. 3D Audio softwares are also a cause.
Uninstall or disable the 3D Audio softwares and drivers as recommended by the 3D drivers.
Note: The Asus Sonic Suite 2 has audio card software that comes with the Asus ROG mainboards.
Once disabled it should stop the conflict with Houdini.
Fix 3: Crash due to lack of System Requirements
Houdini 19.5 System Requirements
Windows:
Operating System – 64-bit only
Windows 11, 10, 8.1, and 8 (64-bit)
Mac:
Requires 64-bit Intel-based or Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 10.15 and higher
Note: on an M1 mac it is NOT supported yet but a technical preview is now available
Linux:
- Ubuntu 18.04+ LTS (64-bit)
- Debian 10.0+ (64-bit)
- RHEL 7+ (64-bit)
- Fedora 28+ (64-bit)
- Open SUSE 15+ (64-bit)
- CentOS 7+ (64-bit)
- Mint 19.3+ (64-bit)
- Pop! 20.04 LTS
Memory
- 4GB
- 12 GB or more
- SideFX strongly recommends 64 GB for fluid simulations.
Processor
Intel or AMD x 64 CPU with SSE 4.2 required. Houdini 19.5 will not work with processors lower than SSE 4.2.
Disk Space
4.5 GB is required for installation
Input Devices
These are devices that SideFX does recommend
- 3 Button Mouse
- Scroll wheel used where present
- Wacom tablet recommended for Houdini’s brush-based tools
Fix 4: Unsupported Graphics Card
A GL4.0-compliant graphics card is required for Houdini. Anything lower will not be adequate to run Houdini 19.5. You need to have a VRAM of 4GB or more. Anything less than this will leave you with display errors or usage problems on Houdini.
Your graphics card must also support OpenCL version 1.2.
The Optix Denoiser requires a Kelper or later NVIDIA GPU(K, P, M, V prefixes)
Karma XPU currently only supports CPU and NVIDIA Optix devices with Optix being the most optimized code path in XPU. Versions after Houdini 19.5 are expected to support CPU optimizations and more GPU hardware.
It is VERY IMPORTANT that you install the latest drivers for your graphics card using proprietary drivers sourced from the card manufacturers and not something open-sourced for Houdini.
Windows:
- NVIDIA Quadro and GeForce GPUs: 511.09 Studio Driver or higher
- AMD: 21. Q4 or higher
- Intel 30.0.100.9955 or higher
Linux:
- NVIDIA Quadro and GeForce GPUs:511.09 Studio Driver or higher
- AMD:21.Q4 or higher
- Intel 30.0.100.9955 or higher
Supported Intel Graphics:
- Intel Iris, Iris Pro (all models)
- Intel HD Graphics P5700, 5600, 5500, 5300
Fix 5: Contact Customer support for a Crash
Houdini has technical support available on Weekdays from 9 am.- 4:30 pm. EST. This support by Houdini excludes CANADIAN CIVIC HOLIDAYS.
You can email customer support via support@sidefx.com. Include the following information
- Your operating system
- Version and Build no. of Houdini
- Summary of the installation issue and a diagnostic file or report if you are facing a licensing issue
- Since this is a crash article we suggest including your crash log report as well when Houdini crashes
Conclusion
Another great suggestion to avoid a Houdini crash is to set yourself up for the annual upgrade plan. The Annual Upgrade Plan of Houdini provides key advantages like production-level technical support and access to complete and dot releases with all the latest enhancements.
If you don’t want to worry about updating all your post-production software. Move on to using Postudio where you have all the best software (hosted on the cloud) that is also up to date!
FAQs
Where are Houdini Crash logs?
Windows: Navigate to: C:/Users/username/AppData/Local/Temp/houdini_temp
macOCX: On OSX crash logs are saved on /tmp. Navigate to this directory using a Terminal (Utilities->Terminal).
Linux: On Linux, the crash logs are saved in /tmp/houdini_temp
