Fractice FAQ

• How do I view the demo?
• Why can't I find my rendering server(s)?
• The app looks old-fashioned, can I change the style?
• CPU doesn't support SSE2?

The View menu only includes a Demo item when no documents are open. To view the demo, first close all documents (e.g. using File/Close), and then select View/Demo.

Why can't I find my rendering server(s)?

Your server PCs must run FractServ.exe, NOT Fractice.exe! Only the client PC should be running Fractice.exe. You'll find FractServ.exe in the Fractice folder, typically C:\Program Files\Fractice. You can either copy it to each server PC, or have the server PCs run it over the LAN from a shared folder. Once your server PCs are all running FractServ.exe, press the "Find" button in the Servers dialog. If you still can't find your servers, it's probably a firewall issue.

Try using the Servers dialog's "Add" button, which bypasses the find and instead prompts you for the server's hostname or IP address. If this works, it's only the find that's having problems; if it doesn't work, something more serious is wrong. Note that the find uses a UDP broadcast, which requires the client and the servers to be on the same subnet. When you do a find, each server should display the message "x.x.x.x found us" where x.x.x.x is the client's IP address. If you see this message, it proves that the server heard the client and responded. The server also has to be able to bind to a UDP socket, which is often what trips the firewall. If possible, temporarily disable the firewall on at least one server PC and see if it helps. Also see the FractServ command line arguments, some of which are useful for working around firewalls.

The app looks old-fashioned, can I change the style?

Yes, you can give Fractice more modern XP-style controls very easily: just download the manifest and copy it into the same folder as the application.

CPU doesn't support SSE2?

If Fractice exits with a "CPU doesn't support SSE2" error message when you try to run it, your CPU doesn't support the SSE2 instruction set and is too old to run the application. If you just want to run the server on an old PC, a non-SSE2 version of the server is available here. The non-SSE2 version can be identified using the /help flag: it reports a GMP version of 4.1.0.