Mastercam 2024 leaves quadro GPU unused

[Johnsp]

I'm having an unusual problem. Running Mastercam 2024, new Quadro RTX 5000 card. When I run Mastercam 2024, all the processing seems to go to the CPU, the GPU just lays absolutely dormant. I've went to the advanced configuration tool in Mastercam and Hardware Acceleration is enabled. I have the latest Nvidia Quadro drivers. But 0% usage on my GPU. I go into the Nvidia control panel, it shows Physx enabled, everything set, and I've got the base profile where everything goes through the CUDA on the RTX; there are no other graphics cards installed, etc.

I also setup an application profile for Mastercam that says: use the GPU. 

None of this seems to make any difference.

Running Win11 Pro, Threadripper  5975WX CPU, Quadro RTX5000. 

I've debated whether or not this is a Windows 11 thing and if I should drop to Windows 10. Right now I'm open to any suggestions.

[gcode]

Check this setting

Start/Mastercam 2024/Advanced Configuration

you'll need Admin rights to make changes

 

 

[Johnsp]

Yep. I have both set to enable, exactly like your photo.

 

Threadripper 5975X, 128GB, RTX A5000, Win 11 Pro

[#Rekd™]

Disable the switchable graphics in the BIOS.

[gcode]

21 minutes ago, Johnsp said:

Yep. I have both set to enable, exactly like your photo.

 

Threadripper 5975X, 128GB, RTX A5000, Win 11 Pro

 

Aside from this graphics issue, how is that Threadripper treating you.

I've read that Threadrippers and Mastercam can have issues, though I don't remember where I read that.

 

[Johnsp]

How do you mean switchable graphics? is there a normal setting this is called?  This doesn't have any integrated graphics on board, and there is no other video card, so this is the only video card present

[#Rekd™]

21 minutes ago, Johnsp said:

How do you mean switchable graphics?

Usually most systems have an on-board card for regular graphics and a high performance GPU for CAD/CAM work. So it is switchable graphics.

If you only have the High performance GPU than it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[SuperHoneyBadger]

If the monitor is plugged into that card, then it is in use, certainly.

Is your GPU Usage % pinned at 0 at all times, or does it ever go to 1%? My suspicion is that your setup is too powerful to register any usage % numbers on a small test part. Do you have something large to throw at it? Have the task manager up on the Performance tab while you do it.

Maybe run the benchmark 3.0 from the benchmark thread, post your time too. Threadrippers are pretty rare beasts, you might get a good time!

[MWearne]

GPU rarely gets used for any toolpath calculations in Mastercam. It should get used when you start rotating the model about.

Still, even at system idle, there should be some load on the GPU. What are you using to monitor the load on the GPU?

Another thing to check, Power Plan. Make sure you are on high performance there. Also, if you just installed it, maybe a restart or two is needed for windows to recognize it correctly.

[Simon Kausch]

12 hours ago, #Rekd™ said:

Usually most systems have an on-board card for regular graphics and a high performance GPU for CAD/CAM work. So it is switchable graphics.

If you only have the High performance GPU than it shouldn't be an issue.

 

Threadrippers are Workstation CPU's which rarely have onbard graphics.

 

11 hours ago, SuperHoneyBadger said:

Maybe run the benchmark 3.0 from the benchmark thread, post your time too. Threadrippers are pretty rare beasts, you might get a good time!

Threadrippers are really powerful for multithreaded stuff but singlecore performance is worse then current Intel i7 and i9 CPU's in single core performance. So in Mastercam they should theoretically be slower (while being a lot more expensive).

9 hours ago, MWearne said:

Still, even at system idle, there should be some load on the GPU. What are you using to monitor the load on the GPU?

I read somewhere the most reliable way to check GPU usage is to monitor the power draw. GPU-Z and MSI Afterburner are tools which show you the GPU power draw.

[Aaron Eberhard]

Mastercam will use the graphics card for certain calculations during HSM (High Speed Machining toolpaths) such as Opti, Waterline, Equal Scallop, etc.   via the OpenCL (note: C, not G) standard

If you're benchmarking programs using the GPU, look for GridComputeServer.exe, as that's the process that handles the GPU utilization:

https://my.mastercam.com/knowledgebase/opencl-troubleshooting/

In practice, the calculations being done on the GPU are so trivial for it, that you have to be really logging a lot to notice a blip.   The first question people have about using GPU processing is "Why aren't you doing ALL of the calculations on the GPU then!??!?11"   The truth is the majority of the time savings of using the GPU for stuff like this is taken up by the operational overhead of managing the data and handing it back and forth from the GPU.