Re: Fatar error in 3d rendering systemI have similar problems. I have 3 computers.
The first is a Dell GX270 desktop running Windows XP Pro. 2 years ago, it ran Sweethome3d fine, although some of the features seemed to be missing. I was unable to copy and paste for instance. Every piece of furniture had to be manually loaded from the libraries. But I was able to render out some pretty good pictures. Slow but fairly reliable.
Then in a frenzy of hard disk space saving, I uninstalled the program about a year ago. About a month ago, I reinstalled the program but now find that I encounter the dreaded fatal error in 3d rendering system every time I try to start the program. I have reinstalled directx, updated my video card drivers, (and when that didn't work even tried rolling the drivers back), still no luck. The program simply won't run now.
The second is a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop running Windows Vista. It runs the program fine and all features seem to work, but it's God-awful slow. Rendering time on average for me is in the 2 to 5 day range. Worse, the battery on the laptop is no good. Earlier this week I had a new image of my Enterprise build rendering. After 4 and a half days and with what I expected to be less than 2 hours to go to complete the image, the power went out and I lost everything. That makes you want to chuck the computer out the window.
The third computer is a Dell Dimension 8400 Tower with a Radeon 2600Xt Graphics Card. This machine won't run the program either. When I try to start it up from the desktop, nothing happens. When I launch it from the Java web start, it starts, but then I run into the fatal error again. I also see messages telling me to update my video card drivers, even though I have the newest Catalyst drivers installed. Again, I even tried rolling the drivers back, but no luck. This problem is not solely with Sweethome3d though. I have been having multiple problems with this video card. Any game or application dealing with 3d causes the card to shut down and reset. And it randomly changes my screen settings, sometimes beyond the monitor's display capabilities forcing me to eventually shut the computer down and restart. UFO: Alien Invasion has similar problems and I was forced to turn hardware acceleration off in Mozilla Firefox because of this problem.
Strangely, two days ago, I managed to launch Sweethome3d from the Java Web start and it actually ran. I set it to render out an animated walkthrough of my starship, and then I went to bed. While I was asleep, the computer put the monitor to sleep as well. When I awoke and touched the mouse everything came back, except for the video render screen It remained black. I could see the 3d view, the furniture library view, and the edit view, but the video render view remained black. Then when I opened other windows, everywhere they overlapped the image from the other window remained over the video render screen. I waited until well past the estimated time of video completion and tried clicking where I thought the save button might be, but nothing. I checked the task manager and it showed 100% CPU usage, but wasn't sure what was going on. Finally I shut the program down and tried to restart it. It wouldn't start. Once again, I get the fatal rendering message. This is frustrating. I have been fighting this on the Dell Dimension for 3 months now.
