Lavina crashes on load

[cnd7jones]

Hello, wondering if you can help get Lavina up and running here. My RTX2080ti is in an external Alienware adapter, not sure if that’s an issue or not. I've attached the dmp file that gets created.

Thanks!

[npg]

Thanks for reporting this. We haven't had the chance to test with external adapters yet, I think, but we certainly should.

Could you please also attach the file debug_log.txt located in "%appdata%/chaos group/project lavina" ?

[cnd7jones]

Attached. Hope you're able to find something helpful.

[npg]

Thanks! This log seems to be from a normal session that did not crash (the log file gets overwritten). This means that the crash does not occur consistently because both the crash session and the successful one were loading the sample scene.

I was able to see which code crashed from the dump file. It was copying resources around on the GPU and a driver function crashed. Don't know why, though.

We will do some tests with an external GPU to see if we can reproduce it.

Btw, did you ever see a small "D3D ERROR" popup window? And how often do you get this crash?

[cnd7jones]

I get that every time. It compiles, then loads the UI and then the crash dialog. As soon as i click OK lavina closes.

[npg]

Ah, I see. I misinterpreted the log. OK. You could try using only one device by starting Lavina like this

lavina.exe -d 0

to use the 2080 Ti; or

lavina.exe -d 1

to use the 1080.

You could also use this argument in a desktop shortcut for easier use.

I hope you will be able to finally try the app this way.

[cnd7jones]

SWEET! That did the trick!

[npg]

Does it work with either card? Does the eGPU work on its own? This might make some sense since in multi-GPU scenarios we transfer data between the cards over PCIe and the eGPU might have some issue with it (we haven't tried such hardware combo yet).

[cnd7jones]

Ok yes, both seem to work independently. 1080 is pretty slow. for reference, the eGPU is using some proprietary alienware connector not the typical usb-c/thunderbolt like other vendors. they claim its faster.

[Phillip Miller]

FWIW, several us at Chaos (including myself) use E-GPU's for Lavina without any issue.

[cnd7jones]

Assuming also from a laptop config? Added chaos - enscape3d since they incorporated RTX support won't launch at all unless i disable it. Maybe it's laptop/e-gpu specific issue?

[Phillip Miller]

Yes - I use Project Lavina daily from my laptop via EGPU, with it having a 2080 in it.
My biggest surprise is that I can leave Lavina running while I undock (usually by accident), use my laptop elsewhere, redock - and Lavina picks up where it left off with the newly found EGPU.

- Phil
VP Product Management, Chaos Group

[npg]

I reproduced the issue. It seems we can't safely transfer data between the internal and external GPU. I've added a new limitation to our startup code - if Lavina detects it's running on a laptop it will only use one device (the one deemed most performant).

Phil, what is your laptop's internal/integrated GPU? I expect only your external GPU is compatible with Lavina, so there is no multi-GPU code executed in your case.

[Phillip Miller]

My Laptop's internal (discrete) GPU is an older GTX part that's not compatible with Lavina. So for my laptop, Lavina is only using the EGPU.

[cnd7jones]

I guess the curse then is if you have a laptop with an internal card equal to or better than the eGPU, there is no way to "currently" benefit with lavina. super helpful discussion though, thank you both for helping to get me up and running!