Video card

[Gus]

My employer is getting me a new office desktop, and it comes with an 256mb RADEON X600 card....

Is this going to ge OK for MCX????

reply asap,he wants to place the order with DELL today..

 

thanks

[within a thou]

Do a search you will find tonnes of tips on video cards

[P_Scott]

Gus,

 

quote:

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256mb RADEON X600 card....

Is this going to ge OK for MCX????

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In a word: NO! Mcam and ATI cards do not traditionally play well together. Even though Mcam X is a Windows application now it still doesn't work well with ATI cards. ATI cards are not fully supporting of OpenGL graphics applications. Mcam X is an OpenGL graphics application. The hardware acceleration can be shut off in Mcam X but that will slow down all the toolpath processing. My advice, have your boss ask Dell for a graphics card with a Quadro FX 540 chipset and at least 128Mb of onboard RAM. The Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) makes all the diference in the world. NVidia has been making quality chipsets for years. We are using the Quardo FX 540 almost exclusively on all our training room computers. These systems not only display Mcam nicely but rarely crash for any reason. We also sell these systems as a "turn key" pc for our clients when they need a reliable programming workstation. Just turn it on and you're up and running. Ordering through Dell means you'll have to be VERY specific with the graphic card choice. Do not allow yourselves to be sold on a "less than adequate" substitution. Quadro FX series chipset, #540 or better for the graphics card is what we recommend to anyone interested in ordering a computer through their vendor. HTH

[Guest]

Actually Peter I run an ATI x800 at home and it works fine.

 

It can be a "little" glitchy when rotating complex parts but other than that I have no problems with it. Heck I can even run :cough: V9 on the very latest drivers without turing down the hardware acceleration.

 

Might not be the best reccomendation but if that's what you can get, it will get you thru.

 

There ARE better cards though, for certain.

[dwsz71]

quote:

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In a word: NO!

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Damn... that's one final word, Pete.

 

quote:

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The Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) makes all the diference in the world

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We need someone very clever to come up with, and publish a benchmark that would/could prove this statement. Wouldn't it be nice to know before hand the performance advantage, in Mastercam, of using a $2,600 Quadro FX 4400 vs. $25 MX4000? I think it would.

 

A nVidia based GFX card will probably be more stable. But even the nVidia cards have their share of problems with Mastercam (like turning off the unified back/depth buffer because of ghosting).

 

JM2C

[P_Scott]

John,

 

I've had numerous tech calls from users who were not seeing things the way Mastercam intended and almost all of them could be traced back to some variation of an ATI graphics card. I'm simply telling Gus what we use and have had little or no problems with. Also I felt that since he needed this info in a timely manner, simply telling him to "search" would eat up more time than he had. Hopefully his boss would be given the information before it was too late to change the order if he already went with the ATI Radeon. Personally there's nothing wrong with the Radeon if you want to play games all day long. It's great for entertainment. Some of the things I've seen on a laptop or desktop with an ATI card are visually stunning in comparison to an Nvidia card. It's the lack of OpenGL support that make ATI cards poor choices for Mastercam workstations. In some cases, they are acceptable but nothing extraodinary. The Quadro FX 540 is what we recommend to anyone who wants a good solid graphics card to use on their Mastercam workstation. It will also run SolidWorks as well. Many of our clients use both. I'm glad you haven't had any issues with the ATI card on your home system John. That means you won't be calling me on the weekends.

 

dws71,

 

quote:

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Damn... that's one final word, Pete.

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Oh well. I was trying to scare him away from gettin' the ATI Radeon. I hope he was able to talk his boss into getting the Quadro card. I guess we'll know later. "It's Miller Time."

[Nick_AFRL]

i run a ATI radeon 9800 pro mcx runs great, 9.1 didnt ruan so hot, but MCX runs fine on it...but i update my drivers for it as soon as they release thme.

[Jim ..]

I use ATI Fire GL T2 card which is Open GL rated, and designed for cad work, and Mastercam has said this model does not suffer from the problems the normal ATI cards have, this works great on Ver 9.0 and Ver X.

[Guest]

At work I also have an ATI Fire GL 3100, the cards like a champ, except for the occasional thing where the cursor will jump to the upper left corner of the screen.

 

Not a big deal except when you're doing something and then the cursor is out of my and I have to move it around so I can "find" it again.

 

Other than that this card works well.

 

The Radeons are a differnet story compared the the GL series of cards.

[chris m]

We had nothing but problems with ATI cards in V8 and, more so, V9; NVidia has worked very well. The FX540 is a relatively inexpensive option and is STRONGLY recommended by Peter and his coworkers / bosses over at S4A. Condsidering how many boxes they have over there and how much testing and playing around Frank does with computer hardware I would be very comfortable going with their suggestions.

 

C

[P_Scott]

chris m,

 

Thanks for backing me up buddy. I felt I was the one on the "hotseat" with this topic. I was just trying to help the guy out. Like I said in my last post, I don't have a problem with ATI cards for use on a personal home computer. When it comes to Mastercam though, there have been too many issues for too long to consider them adequate for use with Mcam. Besides, Frank nearly chewed my head off the last time he heard me recommend even a GeForce FX card instead of the Quadro FX 540. He does the research on new components and builds the systems himself so he knows what works and what doesn't. That's what is needed for a workstation box. It's for making money at work. Anyway, let's put this topic to rest. The horse is beat and has been processed into Elmer's already.

 

On a totally unrelated topic, when's the big day Chris? Things still working out with you and the K girl? One of these days we'll update our training room pics. Can we count on you to show up so we can get another shot of the back of your mug?

 

J/K Chris.

[Guest]

quote:

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I felt I was the one on the "hotseat" with this topic

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No hotseat, if you read all of my posts in this thread I state there are better options than ATI.

 

The only point I was trying to make is, if that is what you can get, with X at least, it "should"

work.

 

BTW, Pete.

 

I am having the graphics glitch, I was wondering......

 

 

[chris m]

Things are working out great, Peter; going home is actually something I look forward to now. As far as the 'big day' lets just say that she won't see another summer with her current last name..

 

I drove by the new place to check it out a few weeks ago but its doubtful I'll be down to visit any time soon; maybe Brendan and I will get tanked up and do some holeshots in the parking lot this summer...

 

C

 

Hey John, the Brick man says 'hi' from out in my manual area

[jmblack]

I have a Radeon9200/128MBddr card and while it does work better than the 32MB card I had before it does have some ANNOYING glitches. I have a nVidia on my laptop and the performance MUCH better. If you have a choice, get the nVidia, the ATI works but works like a car that the wheels keep falling off of...it will get you there, but the problems might be frustrating.

[dwsz71]

quote:

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I felt I was the one on the "hotseat" with this topic

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I'm sorry you felt that way Pete. I also agreed the nVidia cards (to be more specific, Quadro FX, not NVS) would probably be more stable. But I can't agree that the Radeon x600 wouldn't work at all with Mastercam X.

 

quote:

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Anyway, let's put this topic to rest. The horse is beat and has been processed into Elmer's already

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Now I've only been a member of this forum for about seven months, but it seems to me the thread topic "Video Card", or some other hardware query, is a once-a-week post by some one. Killing this topic seems unlikely due to the lack of published data and a standard for testing.

 

Do you think could you persude Frank to publish some of his testing results of system configurations on the s4a website (mmm... new content )? I understand you guys want to sell custom boxes, and hording information is so popular these days because it might affect sales, but in the spirit of the Mastercam community it would be a very generous gesture.

 

BTW, don't let Frank give you too much sh!t about the GeForce cards, he was endorsing the GeForce 7800GTX when X was released.

[chris m]

I'm sure he 'doesn't have any recollection' of that...

[P_Scott]

dws71,

 

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Do you think could you persude Frank to publish some of his testing results of system configurations on the s4a website (mmm... new content )?

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Steve is the one who updates the website. I may be able to produce Frank's results as a member forum topic if I ask him nicely. But then only members of our website would be able to view the forum topic.

 

chris m,

 

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I'm sure he 'doesn't have any recollection' of that...

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I can't speak for Frank. Only repeat what he recommends for hardware components.

 

quote:

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Things are working out great, Peter

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Glad to hear you two are getting along still. Are you living in the area yet or just visiting? I would hate to have your commute if you are living around here. Where's the party going to be? Anywhere near here?