System Slowing Down

[Jace]

Does Mcam really use 100% of the CPU when used in NT4.0? That is what shows unless I open up a dialog box then it drops down to normal levels. I'm asking because in Ver8 it seems to be affecting my system much more than in Ver7. Its very noticeable even when just using the file explorer and seeing the file names load one by one... This is even when just in a drawing mode. No toolpathing, surfacing, etc. Running Nt4.0 on a PII 400 Wrkstation w/ 256RAM Jace

[Karl Oram]

Jace,

The reason for the 100% of the CPU is much the same in Version 7 as in 8. The reason as best as I can explain it, "being that I'm not a programmer" is portions of mastercam ie: the dialog boxes are running as a true windows app, but there is also some old code in there which and I'm not sure of the term that is used here but instead of showing no resources being used its being asked are you using any resources kind of a reverse method so the cpu usage shows off the scale because its asking "are you moving the mouse yet"?.

Your system seems adequate you could check to see if your data base alloacations are set low.

Karl

 

 

[Andreas Stute - InterCAM]

Yor right, Mastercam use some old codes in v8. The system is every time waiting for a keyboard request. But under NT there is normal no problem with other systems. Most of them accept this. We do many test here and we see that v8 is a litle bit slower than v7. Not much. But more RAM and a correct database allocation helps. There are also some problems with OpenGL. With some cards the system is very low with a shaed image. If you use the normal OpenGL functions from your card (no 3d acceleration or hardware support) it will work.

[Toby]

We have been using AMD550's with decent video cards and NT4.0-sp6. The same slow down problems happen to us all the time. After extensive checking and conversations with Mastercam we found that the old dos code is causing the problem and will not be fixed until around Vs9. I have found that you can't be running any other heavy program applications (Word,Excel,ERP's,Outlook,Etc). If you close out all other applications Mastercam does quite well but don't open anything up!!!!

Regards,

Toby

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[This message has been edited by toby (edited 10-03-2000).]

[Jace]

Actually, my concern was more the opposite way. If I leave Mcam running and want to run another app. then that app is slowed down by leaving Mcam running unless I open a dialog box in Mcam. Then the app runs at normal speeds. This was not as noticable in V7.2...

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Another issue not mentioned here is that Mastercam addresses the hardware directly in many instances (thus showing 100% CPU Usage). It's not actually maxxing your CPU out.

Many video issues are related to an Open GL bug in some Video Chipsets (S3 is one). Since Mastercam and other CAD (read Graphics intensive) programs address the hardware directly(which games do not) and this bug does not bother "gamers". The issue will most likely not be resolved until the gamers are affected. They pretty much drive the Video Graphics Industry. Kind of sad to think games are more important than manufaccturing.

Just my .02

James

[steelhead77]

Greetings,

I'm running V8 on a HP Visualize workstation with a Visualize FX video card and 256 megs of ram running NT4 sp5. I have found no slow down problems even when running Solid Designer, ME10, Autocad, Outlook, Word and IE4. All at the same time. The only time I have a slow down is when I am running 2 sessions of Mastercam at the same time then it really bogs down to a crawl. It might help if you change your allocations. Mine are set at, in order top to bottom, 6000, 6000, 500, 60000, 100000. Hope this helps.

Scott

 

[johns]

I run Win98, 256 ram, p3-450 and have no noticeable slowdowns with 2 Mastercam sessions. Checking the allocations is the thing to do. Allow room for the OS to run (32 MB ) and set the total in MCam to less than half of the remainder. If you need to run other stuff at the same time, you will need to drop the allocations or get more RAM.

[camguy]

I just got a new system, PIII, 933, 256 ram,

36 Gb scii, and an oxygen GVX1 video card. I

had problems with file/save before on my old system, but havn't had any trouble on my new

one. I can have mcam, cadkey, excell, word,

explorer all open at the same time and i don't see any slowing down of mcam. Have you tried increasing your page file size? I have mine set at about 1Gb. This video card is the best i have tried. I had the oxygen vx1 before and i wasn't impressed. but the gvx1 is fantastic. shading of about 600 surfaces takes about 3 seconds, dynamic rotate, zoom, pan is like real time, no hesitation. There is even an optimized setting for mastercam if you download the latest drivers.

hope this is of use to you.

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[Christian Raebild]

With respect to the RAM allocations, in my experience, the database and toolpath allocations should be set to tousands of "binary-straight' figures for best perfomance, i.e. one of the values 4000, 8000, 16000, 32000, 64000, 128000, etc.

Also, even formmakers rarely need database allocations above 32000, the toolpath allocation should often be much higher than the database allocation.