Support for binary data files?
 

I used the Athena MHD code for working on some CFD problems and it output files with an extension call .bin which can be opened with exelisvis products but I wondered if there was some other "free" or cheaper product out there for it?

I haven't used this software but as its website says:
"Athena does not come with a default graphics package. Instead, the user must decide which visualization package is best suited to their needs, output the data in a format which can be read by this package, and then proceed."

Hence, you can change the program and make it create different output files, for paraview for example.

Paraview is buggy though, do you know of another program that can visualize VTK format and make an animation and its free?

Have you tried Paraview 3.98? it's running pretty stable for us, and we found it to be the best VTK visualization software, especially for HPC purposes....

Yup, I have 3.98.1 and I can't seem to load VTK files from Athena and animate them.