QUADRO FX 1400 PCI-E CONFIGURATION

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

First a little background...

 

We bought a new PC recently. Asus mobo, AMD 4400 dual core, 2GB memory.

 

Due to a misunderstanding with the local computer store we ended up with a BFG technologies Geforce 7900GT which performed overall quite well but due to a few minor display issues and the consensus on this forum about how great the Quadro line is we got the computer guy to get us the card we were supposed to have.

 

Quadro FX 1400 PCI-E.

 

Installed today. Updated the driver to the latest from Nvidia (84.26).

 

Just ran a couple quick tests. Verify looks good. Backplot has a strange new characteristic that I am not thrilled about.

 

When "stepping" through a backplot, the tool advances as long as you keep pressing the button but when the button is released it backs up a couple/few steps. Obviously this doesn't make the software unusable but I am not thrilled yet either...

 

Does anybody know if I can tweak this behavior away ?

 

The "disable front buffer" setting in Mastercam's config has no effect.

[Guest]

Matt,

 

Do a search on rollback drivers.

 

There are sevral people with nVidia cards that have had to rollbak drivers to previous versions to get them to run properly.

 

Linky

[Steve Zirtzman]

Matt,

I would recomend rolling back to the Quadro driver version 77.56, and then see if backplot works any better for you.

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

Exactly what I just tried after following John's link and seeing Bullines recommendation.

 

Same result as the latest drivers. And yes, I followed Bullines "Safe Mode" installation procedure.

 

I saw in another thread gcode had another even older version which was working out for him. Off to download that now...

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

All the way back to version 70.78 with the same exact problem.

 

Any other ideas ?

 

Surely with all the quadro cards in use by the forum members somebody else has had this issue ?

 

I am starting to miss my "gaming" card.

[Guest]

Peter Scott will surely beat me over the head on Monday morning for this one.

 

My ATi card is working just fine

 

 

I feel for you Matt.

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

I saw the exact same backplot issue at S4A with Peter Scott on their Quadro equipped PC during a tech day event.

 

I assumed that some configuration setting had been overlooked...

[Guest]

Matt, dumb question.

 

Did you reboot each time after installing the different drivers?

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

Absotively Posolutely.

[edmBosto]

Try this,

go to Start/Display/Settings/Advanced/

and click on open GL settings to the left side of screen, and deselect;

 

Use Unified back/depth buffer.

 

It seems that the standard Nvidia FX card does not have this setting.

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

WOO HOO !

 

edmBosto you nailed it !

 

I *thought* that checking "disable front buffer" in the Mastercam config would eliminate the need to worry about that setting.

 

After trying your suggestion I found that this setting in Mastercam's config makes NO DIFFERENCE for this issue. Changing the "unified back/depth buffer" slider to "off" in the display properties made all the difference.

 

If you're ever in CT's "quiet corner" I owe you a brew !

 

I am also using the latest nvidia driver (84.26) again and all seems well (in case a future reader is chasing this issue down).

[Leif Johnson from MICO Inc]

I just got a new puter at the end of the day Thurs. and was gone yesterday. I will let you know what mine is acting like when I go in Monday morning.

 

Leif

[edmBosto]

Matt,

I'm getting thirsty already.

Anyways that makes it one in a row for me on helping someone.

I had also been getting funky visual backplots

and it did feel great to resolve that.

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

O.K. just had a backplot crash situation using version 84.26 It would happen every time consistently on one particular toolpath.

 

Safe mode, uninstall nvidia drivers, re-install version 77.56

 

Problem solved so far...

 

Will update here if any more issues.

[gcode]

I'm running 77.56 on both my machines now.

(One FX-300 AGP and one FX1400 PCiE)

Disabling Unified back/depth buffer in Performance and Quality Settings is a must.

I've only got one glitch left.

After extensive use of Single Step backplot, the tool will start backstepping after each foward step. This may happen once or twice a day after heavy backplot use.

The solution is to close Mastercam and reopen.

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

Interesting... Thanks for the tip !

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

gcode (or any other video card guru),

 

Are there any other settings in the quadro menu that would enhance my Mastercam experience ?

 

I don't know anything about all those options...

[gcode]

quote:

---

I don't know anything about all those options...

---

me neither

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

Okay, any other gurus?

[edmBosto]

All I know is when I import saved operations from my saved library with my personal settings my backplot does weird things. But when I create it new with the original default settings my backplot seems to work fine.

I am just starting in wireX so I don't know if this is consistant. I had been using Mill 9 previuosly.

Seems this is a mastercam glitch to me.

[Hymen]

Wow disabling back depth buffer decreased toolpath processing from 4+ minutes to 40 seconds.

I knew there was something wrong with that computer (870 Precision workstation Xeon) when a P4 (370 precision workstation) would beat it in processing 3d toolpaths.

 

Thank you for the info.

[jctjct]

I just got a Quadro FX 1300 PCiE. I sure am glad I remebered this thread because my backplot kept backing up too. There is no way I would have ever stumbled onto that fix by myself.

[Leif Johnson from MICO Inc]

I had a problem with all of my solids being the same color. They were suppose to be all different colors. If I would drag my mouse over the objects, they would show like they should. Then if I moved anything, they would all go back to the same color. I did excactly the opposite of you guys and then I checked use hardware acceleration. My color problem seems to be better. I haven't had much time to do any extensive backplotting. My verify looks like crap now! The background keeps changing colors & flashes alot. Are there any fixes to my color problem in verify?

 

Thanks

Leif

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

Leif are you using MR2 ? Thad's rule

 

What Nvidia driver ?

[Leif Johnson from MICO Inc]

Sorry, MR2 is loaded. I'm running 8.1.6.7. My backplot & verify are skrewed up, but my solids sure look good. I'm going to try more settings today.

 

Leif