United3dArtists Archive

Hi all,

I'm an architect and architectural renderer with 13-years of experience with TrueSpace and have hundreds of archived TS building models (i.e. scenes). I've worked with whatever was previous to TS3, then TS3, TS5, TS7, and TS 7.6. I work on the Model Side almost exclusively, and most of my work is heavy into photorealism with HDRI lighting and such. For the last 5-years I've run TS on a 2005 Northgate PC running Windows XP. It's dying.

Here's my problem:
I just bought an Intel-based iMac 11,1 with the following specs:
Intel Core i7 cpu; 8G RAM; ATI Radeon HD4850 512MB GPU. (This the highest-end iMac rig made) (Logical question: Why the Mac?--I'm eventually going to a Mac-based 3d rendering program--which one? and when? I don't know yet. But the point is that the ability to work on TS models for some years to come is critical to my business: people add-on to and remodel buildings all the time!)

The Mac is partitioned using Bootcamp, and on the Windows partition I have installed a brand new, out-of-the-box full version of Windows XP with all Service packs and updates installed. The Windows partition is 275G (on a 1TB hard drive).
I'm running McAfee anti-virus (but I've used that for years on the Northgate with no problem). I have DirectX 9.0c installed; have run the "dxdiag" diagnostic and all is ship-shape. I've installed all my other software (Adobe Photoshop and the like) and they all run like a dream on this partition.

I have half a dozen clean, TS7.6 install files that I downloaded and archived when Caligari announced their demise in May, 2009. (These all install and run just fine on my dying Northgate...but I'm being forced to ease-out of this rig because the Northgate is getting increasingly unstable and crashes alot in TS and in just about every other software I run)

All right. When I have installed ANY of the versions of TS7.6 or 7.61 on the Windows partition of the iMac (they install fine) and then click on the icon, the opening TS7 banner appears and then within a few seconds the stock Windows window appears: the one that says something like "We're sorry but Windows has encountered a problem and has to close...please tell Microsoft, send an srror report etc.") This happens on every version installed, every time.

Any body have any idea what the problem is here? As you can guess, I've got years of work tied-into these TrueSpace models. From reading the forums I know that a number of you are very knowledgeable about the hardware/Windows XP issues.

All responses gratefully appreciated! Thanks.

I don't have your answer but did you see this?
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/s ... light=imac"

are you running the xp account as an admin account.

other thing to check is I recall in the past another user had an issue with ati on an imac , unfortunately I dont have access to my old information anymore , but from recollection the solution was found somewhere on the ati website for graphics driver update.
It might be a good idea to make sure you have the latest ati drivers for the GPU, also check that your directx is at least up to 9.0c version on the xp side of the machine.

sometimes as well it can pay to try and install the graphics drivers in safe mode , sometimes it helps to turn off antivirus temporarily when installing the driver package, if I do this I always ensure that I am not connected to the net.

Thanks to you both...and to all who took the time to view my post.

I've had some success. By running TS7.6 in Windows98 compatibility mode I can get the app to run. It's pretty fragile--had a crash already--but much more stable after I turned off the Bridge. (I work on the Model side exclusively anyway, so no loss there) I haven't had the time to work with it much yet, so I don't know of any downsides that might result from running in the Windows98 mode.

As for running Parallels or Fusion: thanks for the link; I had not seen it. It led to some other sources as well and this is definitely an alternative. (But I'm still a little leery about the benefits of running a virtual machine...unless it's the only way I can get TrueSpace to run. I ran into a lot of posts on other forums regarding the slowdown associated with Parallels and Fusion and the difficulties expressed about uninstalling these virtual machines)

As for Cayenne's post: all good suggestions. Yes I ran a diagnostic for DirectX 9.0c on the XP side; all okay there. I will be looking into the drivers and following your lead on driver installation tips. But here, too, a little leery about proceeding unless there is no alternative and only if I'm confident that I know what I'm doing. (Had a very bad experience with updating drivers a few years ago--they were ATI's "best" recommendation for the GPU on my Northgate rig...but they had serious compatibility issues with XP--solved that when I reinstalled new drivers (not OEM) recommended by Microsoft)

Thanks again guys.

Still open to any other suggestions...any and all welcome.