Is anyone using ATI Cards?

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Hello All,

 

Building a new box. As some of you may know I do the video training for MastercamU and I thought this time I might get an ATI card since I've heard good things about their performance for this type of work. So I'll be recording and editing video, but also doing it with Mastercam. I know what your all going to say "Get an NVidia Card". When I did tech support, that's the same thing I told all my customers. But someone must be using some model of ATI.

 

I'm looking at this card. It's the ATI/AMD 6950 w/ 2GB and seems to have a nice balance of price vs. performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121416

 

Any ATI / Mastercam users out there.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike Mattera

Tips For Mfg.

http:\\www.tipsformanufacturing.com

[Greg Williams]

I used a FireGL on a Lenovo T60P notebook up until last year. It worked great with Mastercam

[Mgrenier]

We use ATI FireGL V7700 and they work great.

 

HTH

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Someone told me the FireGL's work better than the Radeon's. Anyone have any experience with an ATI Redeon?

 

Martin: Did you have to throttle down the acceleration properties to get it to work, of did it just work?

 

Thanks for your input.

 

Mike Mattera

[dforsythe]

I had a Radeon about 5 years ago and it was a p.o.s. while running cad/cam apps. it did perform great while doing other things like video edit ect. never had any problems since we switched to nvida.

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Well the ATI FirePro cards seem to be the thing for Workstation 3D Cad applications. Anyone have any experience with this ATI FirePro V7800 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814195098

 

Mike Mattera

[Guest]

Mike, your dollar, your time, so far be it for anyone to tell you what to do with it.

 

I can't understand why do something that so many people have issues with instead of just going with what we KNOW works.

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

I know, but it's not just price. The ATI V7800 runs a lot cooler. I'm trying to make this system as quiet as possible. Cooler means fewer (or no) case fans. It's hot here in AZ in the summer. I dont want be sitting next to a space heater :-) It's just something else I need to consider.

 

Plus, this card gets great reviews from SolidWorks users.

It is workstation class performance for 3D applications.

I would still like to have some Mastercam user say "Yes I have one and it works perfect".

 

Any and all input is appreciated.

 

Mike Mattera

[Jayson Kramer]

I was going to say I know it works well with SW and Solidcam as I have a eng friend using for this stuff.I would go for it.

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Norbert @ Shopware says...

 

"I know the FirePro cards work well. I have a customer that runs them to program really complex turbines for their Okuma Multus(lots of solids and machine sim) and he told me “no problems at all”"

 

I think I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on this one.

 

Mike Mattera

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Nice comparison review.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_firepro_v4800_v7800&num=1

 

I think some of the Mastercam users might be please to find a $600 alternative for a workstation video card. The Nvidia Quadro's are very good cards, but you certainly pay the price (2 x this card @ minimum).

 

It is a large, full length card. So you need the right case for it.

 

This is a nice performance comparison that rates comparably priced Quadro FX 3700 and FX 3800 cards.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=926&type=expert&pid=3

Good bang for the bucks.

 

Mike Mattera

[MotorCityMinion]

I used a fireGL v5600 for about 1 month with MC and SW. Performed flawlessly with both apps but it seemed slower than my 9800gt in verify. I gave it to my father in law and now wish I had it back. Don't know about the Radeon series though. These guys run specials quite often:

 

http://stores.ebay.c...id=p4634.c0.m14

[MIL-TFP-41]

I think most people here with their bias toward nVidia cards are still living in V9 days. ATI and V9 got along as well as Israel and Iran. Since the original version X came out....things are a bit different. Mastercam changed their engine...ATI was bought out by AMD....its a different world. That being said....I have used both nVidia's and ATI's cards. The "workstation" cards (ie the Quadro and fireGL) cards do have some very subtle differences vs. the gaming cards in Mastercam. Little things like in your tool manager...when you go to the filter....with a gaming card it is tough to tell what category (flatmill, bullmill, ballmill, ect) is highlighted and what is not. With the workstation cards it is obvious. As far as the difference between a Quadro and a fireGL...I think it is a toss up for quality. On the very high end market nVidia has the advantage....however mastercam's graphics are far from what I would call high end. End of story is that I have had great luck with fireGL cards with and with any "X" version.

 

As far as verify time....a few years back I did testing with a Quadro FX 4000 and a GeForce 6800 (and also did the softquadro thing to the 6800) and found no difference. At the time verify seemed processor dependent (and I would bet that it still is)

[Mgrenier]

Mike,

 

For us, it was a "plug and play" card. I just had to get the driver from the solidworks website, it runs better.

 

HTH

[Guest]

JMC,

 

Some of us deal with these issues everyday.

 

So no, we're not stuck in V9 land.

 

If you want a system with minimal issues, the Quadro FX IS the way to go.

 

I used to program on a FireGL V3100, I used to think it was "OK" until I moved to a Quadro based system and realized many of the little things I saw were caused by the card.

 

I also tried to run X3 and X4 on a Radeon x900 card, in short, don't bother.

 

The ATi issue was ALWAYS the implementation of OpenGL, now maybe they've fixed, I can't say, I have not recently tried an Ati card because of previous shortcomings, on a support side I stick with what works.

[Thee Rickster ™]

I remember when , I believe X4(no MU(coulda been x3 though)), had a major video card issue that cnc had a

stand alone dload to fix and it also fixed compatibility(or something) problems with

ati and or gaming cards. As I did have a ATI gaming card to test it on at home, and all my graphic issues

went away.

 

The Card I tested it on was way faster than my FX1500($500) and only cost me $100 brand new at the time.

 

I upgraded my board ram and chip and put a GTS 250 in (currently still have) It is so freakin' fast I threw

out the fx1500 . I have upgraded to Win 7 64 bit on that system and 8 gig ram and no issues at all

 

Hopefully nothing has 'changed back' since then

 

Cheers

[gcode]

I had terrible problems with V8, V9 and ATI cards..

I've been a Quadro user ever since... usually buying them inside Dell refurbs to keep the cost down.

I still have an old Pentium 3 / Win2000 laptop with an ATI card that ran V9, X and X2 OK.

I've upgraded it to XP pro and it still runs X4 OK, but is too slow for any real world use.

I have never had good results with ATI /Mastercam in desktops, but to be fair, its been

over a decade since I tried one.

The Quadros are much cheaper in price/performance ratio than they used to be.

A high end Quadro 4000 can be purchased from Amazon for $750 now.

Three years ago a high end Quadro FX would set you back $2500

[Mcam Nut]

I think some of the Mastercam users might be please to find a $600 alternative for a workstation video card. The Nvidia Quadro's are very good cards, but you certainly pay the price (2 x this card @ minimum).

 

Nvidea now has a 2GB Quadro 4000 for aprox $750.00... Sorry G, didnt see your post before I replied

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Good feedback from all. I appreciate it. I agree about the V8/V9/ATI problems. Kept me away from ATI's.

 

Seems pretty unanimous:

ATI Radeon = Great for gaming but BAD for CAD

ATI FireGL or FirePro = Workstation class for CAD, works well with X1-X5.

 

When my office was in the basement in Wisconsin, Having an AMD CPU and an NVidia GPU gave me good performance and acted like a space heater. Now that I'm in Phoenix, where a cool summer day is 105°, I try to turn off or tone down anything that makes heat. I buy Intel CPU's to reduce the heat output.

 

Ordering my system today with the ATI FirePro V7800 2GB, 256Bit, Single slot.

BTW: This is my 6th or 7th computer from Magic Micro (www.magicmicro.com).

They sell a lot of high end Gamming pc's on Ebay.

They have to special order the video card I want, but their price for the complete system is very good. I'll post the complete specs if anyone is interested.

 

Thanks again for your input,

 

Mike Mattera

[gcode]

let us know how it works out

 

 

[Leandro]

We use both ATI and Nvidia.

In my opinion in former times was a big differens. Nvidia works better. V8,V9.

Now I don´t see any differens.

Ofcourse a better ATI card works better than a not so good ATI card and the same with Nvidia.

But in the past the problem with ATI cards was with hangup and so on. This don´t happens now.

[Scott Lundin Shopware Inc.]

Hey Mike, Hows that new ATI V7800 been working out in Mastercam? Have you been using it to make some of the mastercamu videos?

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

This is a nice system. Just posted my benchmark times (1:09) in the Benchmark thread.

 

Having Win7 has allowed me to install my audio capture card (M-Audio 192) and now I can record 2 guitar channels and a MIDI guitar Synth channel all at the same time. No latency problems.

 

I've run a bunch of small Mastercam projects on it with no problems either. I'm using the same flat screens and I think my graphics look a little crisper on one. The other flat screen is on it's way out. But I've got 2 new screens arriving this week (24" 1920x1080).

 

The thing I hate about getting any new computer is the installations. Install the Video capture software, video editing, graphics editing, digital audio capture, CODEC's, Database, Email/Email lists, Browser bookmarks, calender, AntiVirus, getting it on the network, mapping drives, etc...

 

Not to mention installing and configuring X3, X4 and X5.

 

Everything is running SWEET now!

 

Mike Mattera

 

System Info: MagicMicro.com

Intel i7 970 (6Core)3.2Ghz / ASUS Rampage III Extreme X58 / 12 GB Ram

500GB SATA II / 1TB SATA III / ATI FirePro V7800 w/ 2GB

Mastercam X5 MU1 on Win7 Pro X64

[Mic]

Mastercam X5 MU1 on Win7 Pro X64

 

Beta tester or have I missed the release of MU1?

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

CNC Software Video Training Developer (MastercamU) and Beta Tester.

 

Mike Mattera