Okino's software development team has always placed #1 priority on fixing crashing problems with our software. This has lead to very stable and clean software releases. For stable software releases the most common problems that lead to crashes are buggy video drivers or mismatched software DLLs.
Email support@okino.com immediately. We are always receptive to crash reports and can provide immediate assistance from some of our prior experience. The first thing we will ask for is your product registration number and the version of software you are running (see Help/About dialog box); many times a crashing problem can be solved by simply updating your software to the newest version. If you have the newest software then please ZIP up your dataset and email it to support@Okino.com (if under 10MB). It is a simple matter for us to crash the software into our debugger and find the root of the problem quickly. When software crashes do occur we will patch it up and return to you a fixed and working version. We always appreciate working with customers to resolve problems like this. - Updated: October 19, 2007
This is the only time we will state this blatent answer: the casue is your video driver. Every single incident of such errors from users since 1996 has always been due to the machine using an old video driver.
Okino's PolyTrans & NuGraf implement real time shaded 3D objects in their user interfaces via the OpenGL realtime rendering API. The implementation is multi-threaded, meaning that each view window is updated in parallel with the other view windows. Also, tri-strips and display lists are used to heavily accelerate the display performance. Older video drivers which have their own OpenGL implementaiton are often buggy and lead to crashes.
Our first suggestion which always works is to update your video driver, in particular the OpenGL driver portion. Second, you can revert to "Non-OpenGL, Wireframe" viewing mode which uses Windows GDI calls and not OpenGL calls. Third, you can disable multi-threaded output and/or display list usage for the view windows (press the small icon in the upper left ocrner of any view window and select the "Configure OpenGL" menu item). - Updated: October 19, 2007
Mis-matched DLLs are a culprit for users who upgrade their installations of PolyTrans or NuGraf but don't update all necessary DLLs.
All Okino DLLs are located in the main PolyTrans or NuGraf home directory (typically "c:\program files\polytrans" or "c:\program files\nugraf"). The DLLs all begin with the letters "vc4_".dll" for historical reasons. The same "vintage" of DLLs are needed to successfully run Okino software since they all act as one big family of software.
From our experience the biggest problem for mis-matched DLLs is with the special plug-in modules for 3DS MAX and Maya (PolyTrans-for-MAX and PolyTrans-for-Maya). These special plug-ins exist with the MAX and Maya plug-ins directories; however, they depend upon the vc4_*.dll files located in the Okino home directories. Some users go and copy these vc4_*.dlls into the MAX home directory or the Maya "bin" directory. This can lead to problems in the future.
Thus,
- Make sure you have not copied any vc4_*.dll files into the MAX home directory or the Maya "bin" directory.
- Ask Okino for download instructions for the newest versions of PolyTrans and NuGraf. Exit all running copies of these programs as well as MAX or Maya. Perform the update. This will patch the vc4_*.dll files and the main PolyTrans or NuGraf executables.
If you still experience crashing problems due to mis-matched DLLs then please send email to support@okino.com. We can resolve your problems. - Updated: October 19, 2007
