Hello! I’m new to this forum and new to Rhino, so sorry if my question is too basic.
I have a laptop with an NVIDIA RTX 3070 4Gb graphics card running Rhino 7. When I try to use “Raytrace” mode in viewports, it shows an orange bar at the bottom showing the process doesn’t start.
Beyond that, I can’t see material previews in material slots neither when creating or viewing materials in the scene.
It seems that my graphic card doesn’t work at all, but it runs ok in other applications. I already tried updating the drivers, but nothing changed.
Can you help me, please?
Hi there.
Please post your _SystemInfo command results to the forum.
If you are new to Rhino, it may well still be compiling shaders for first use (?). This will happen during your first render. But I cannot recall how it works in Rhino 7, or if it explicitly states.
In Rhino 7 it takes a while with not very good feedback for Raytraced and Rhino Render to get kernels that are properly compiled. It can take several minutes, even up to 10 minutes to complete. I would suggest to switch to Raytraced, then switch back to Wireframe, but let Rhino do its thing until it is properly switched to Wireframe - don’t do anything else, don’t kill the process. Once you’re back in Wireframe you should be able to use Raytraced properly.
This process has been greatly improved in Rhino 8: while the kernels for the GPU aren’t ready you’ll get fallback to CPU. The GUI in Tools > Options > Rhino Render also will show you more feedback on the state of that. Orange dot compile in progress (or potentially failed) and green device ready for rendering.
Thank you both for your tips. I tried everything (including a re-installation of the software) but nothing changed. The render doesn’t work at all. Material slots aren’t visible and Raytraced visualization mode doesn’t render the viewport, even after 30 minutes without touching anything.
Unfortunately, upgrading to Rhino 8 is not an option at this time.
I am including here the system info, in case it gives you any clue about this problem.
SystemInfo.txt (2.1 KB)
As a minor note, you actually have an RTX 3050, 4 GB, which is fine enough.
Are you able to post your file here, so that any issues can be inspected more closely? It may be something simple like a material setup error, or something to do with lighting (or lack thereof).
The Rhino 7 needs a service release:
Rhino 7 SR1 2020-10-25
Please go to Help pulldown Check for Updates. The current Rhino 7 is about 7 SR36 or so.
Thank you again. I tried opening this file in another computer and it works fine. Its a problem with raytrace display mode, probably due to my hardware configuration.
This is a simple file with two boxes. No materials or lights are actually created here. I got this problem when trying to use raytraced display mode in the viewport Perspective.
Other machines in the studio have exactly the same Rhino release and don’t have this problem 
Raytrace Display Mode error.3dm (204.7 KB)
Good news! I installed a trial version of Rhino 8 for testing, and it worked out after compiling kernels! I will ask my boss tomorrow to buy the newer version of the software. Have a good evening!
Thank you everybody for your kind support
Did you update to the latest version of Rhino 7 as well? Because the 3dm file you shared is created with Rhino 7.1 and the newest is Rhino 7.36. Scott told you to use the Help menu and Check for updates.... Make sure you are updated to the very latest Rhino 7.36 - this is free, no need to buy a newer version.
Of course, if you can get updated to the newer Rhino 8 version that’ll be probably even better.
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Thank you Nathan, that’s a good tip. I will try updating v7 first and see what happens.
Thank you everybody!