Do certain video cards make verify faster?

[Darin]

Hello,

 

I am running MasterCam X5. My pc seams to run verify slow. Will a better video card speed up verify? How about a Quadro FX 380 video card? I am thinking of buying a six core. Will this make verify faster?

 

My current PC configuration

 

Manufacturer Intel® Core i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz

Clock Speed 3.3GHz

L2 Cache Size 512

 

12gb's of Ram

 

Intel® HD Graphics (On board graphics)

[MotorCityMinion]

Sure does make a difference. Almost anything is better than on board video. Get a Nvidia Quadro or ATI Fire GL. Unfortunately, gaming cards at the same price point as their CAD related brethren outperform them by a huge difference but can cause graphics issues in a CAD environment and are usually not supported. (Sounds like a money grubbing scam or a lame excuse for performance issues if you ask me) If you want decent speed, your going to half to step up into the mid level cards. The 380 you mentioned is pretty much entry level and may leave you wishing that you had a better card. It really depends on the type of work you do as well. All 2d contouring? Entry level cards work fine. Serious surfacing? Get a mid to high level card.

[gcode]

Intel® HD Graphics (On board graphics)

 

If Mastercam will even run on this card, you are luckier than most

 

IMO, the minimum video card for Mastercam would be a Quadro FX 1800 or the new Quadro 2000

Quadro Line Card

[Darin]

Great thanks for the info. I found a brand new Quadro FX 380 card for $20 on eBay so I bought it. But since I do alot of surfacing and solid modeling with SolidWorks maybe I should get the Quadro FX 2000 or better. So does the size of the CPU (2/4or6 Core and GHZ) make more difference with verify speed then graphics card? I am looking into a six core.

[Colin Gilchrist]

I have the FX 380 on my home computer. It is more than adequate to run Mastercam.

 

The multi-core processor won't do much to improve your Verify speed. It will help with processing HSM Toolpaths, but not much else. Try the new graphics card first before upgrading your processor.

[BenK]

I have an FX 1700 video card at home, it works really good for what I do at home(basic 2D). I had lower end gaming cards before and they would burn up after about 3 months, I have had the FX1700 for around a year now with no problem. But it would be very slow for me at work where I have an FX4600. The FX4600 even slows down when you get into a really complex model. I would say if you do a lot of surfacing you should look into a little better card.

[MIL-TFP-41]

Going off a test I did a few years ago, video cards have NOTHING to do with actual verify speed. The test i did was a GeForce 6800GS vs a Quadro FX4000. Verify times were 100% identical. When it came to things like STL compare, a totally different story. The quadro card smoked the geforce. The Quadro card did make things a bit smoother inside of mastercam also.

 

All of that said, I would never run and CAD/CAM application with onboard video. Been there, tried that, it sucks.

[jeff]

I would think that verify speed is more related to your CPU than your vid card, and your i5 is plenty fast enough.

 

On this pc I still have a Pentium D 2.8ghz, and a GeForce 7300LE card

But then again, I don't have files that are made up of thousands of surfaces either.

Jeff teh needs a new PC!

[Guest]

The bottom line is if you are doing a lot of 3D surfacing with small step overs and fine finishes, verify is painful and there isn't much you can do about it.

 

Lower the quality, increase the tool and stl tolerances

 

Use Fast Forward.

[Scott Lundin Shopware Inc.]

The graphics card does make a big difference if Verify speeds. See my test chart I have been keeping. These times were all done on the mcx file mentioned in the benchmark post.

[Verndog]

The biggest speed difference I've seen in verify is upgrading to SSD. Anytime you see your hard drive blinking in Mastercam it will speed that up significantly.

[peon]

I benchmarked 3 similar desktop pc's using X5 on a very detailed trode. The only difference with these workstations were the video cards. The video card made a HUGE difference.

 

NVIDIA FX1800 = 19:03

 

NVIDIA 9800GTX = 16:00

 

NVIDIA GTX460E = 10:32

 

That 460 smokes anything I have seen!

[Guest]

NVIDIA GTX460E = 10:32

 

That 460 smokes anything I have seen!

 

That one surprises me as it's a gaming card, a reasonably priced one at that

 

 

 

 

 

 

NVIDIA 9800GTX = 16:00, that one is too

[MIL-TFP-41]

The bottom line is if you are doing a lot of 3D surfacing with small step overs and fine finishes, verify is painful and there isn't much you can do about it.

 

Lower the quality, increase the tool and stl tolerances

 

Use Fast Forward.

 

Sad but true. Problem with lower quality and more open tolerances is that it makes the STL compare feature worthless.....which is a great feature that I don't think many utilize. (saved my butt just yesterday)

 

The graphics card does make a big difference if Verify speeds. See my test chart I have been keeping. These times were all done on the mcx file mentioned in the benchmark post.

 

I am very surprised to see this. Everything I have seen says that verify is very CPU dependent.....this warrants further research.

[Guffie]

NVIDIA GTX460E = 10:32

 

That 460 smokes anything I have seen!

 

Got that at home and it rocks, for gaming and for Mastercam as well...

 

And graphic card surely makes a huge difference for verify time, at least in my case... Here at work I changed from a Quadro FX 570 to a ATI Radeon 5670... Could almost take a nap during verify with the FX 570, but 5670 really speeded it up, even it doesn't come close to the GTX460....

 

 

[Guest]

NVIDIA GTX460E = 10:32

 

Curious how much memory that particular card had?

 

There's a WIDE variety with that card and just as wide a price structure.

[peon]

The following is Greek to me, but here are the specs on this card:

 

Graphics Clock = 648 Mhz

Processor Clock = 1296 Mhz

Memory Clock = 1700 Mhz (3400 Mhz data rate)

Memory Interface = 256-bit

Total Available Graphics = 4095 Mb

Dedicated Video Memory = 1024 MB GDDR5

System Video Memory = 0 Mb

Shared System Memory = 3071 Mb

Bus = PCI Express x 16 Gen2

[Craig Madsen from CM3D]

On the verify control page, if you don't really need to see EVERY STEP the tool takes, change the 'Moves/step' and 'Moves/refresh' numbers to be 10 or 20 or, I sometimes change them to be in the 100's or 1000's.

 

It will refresh a lot less, and in the process have to render the tool and part a LOT less, and give you a much lower time for your coffee break.

[ThRaSH]

The following is Greek to me, but here are the specs on this card:

 

Graphics Clock = 648 Mhz

Processor Clock = 1296 Mhz

Memory Clock = 1700 Mhz (3400 Mhz data rate)

Memory Interface = 256-bit

Total Available Graphics = 4095 Mb

Dedicated Video Memory = 1024 MB GDDR5

System Video Memory = 0 Mb

Shared System Memory = 3071 Mb

Bus = PCI Express x 16 Gen2

 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gtx-460-us.html

According to those specs it looks like it's the GTX 460 SE card.

Should get slightly better times with the GTX 460 1GB card

Who manufactures your card EVGA, MSI, PNY?

 

Too bad there isn't a video card\verify benchmark thread...

[peon]

The manufacturer is EVGA and you are correct, it is a GTX 460 SE card. The Quadro FX1800 and GeForce 9800 GTX are both PNY cards.

[delete]

Scott and Dave at Shopware came up with the best overall .stl tolerences for me in X4

.008 / .003 if I recall (I'm at home now)

I still use those settings in X5.

[within a thou]

Is it possible to tweak the settings on the video card itself? I inherited a computer that the previous programmer had set up to run gibbs, which I had switched over to X5 and even with its beefed up graphic card I have tonnes of problems, for example whenever I reverse a chain the arrrow disappears and selecting things is hit or miss at best. It seems more of a refresh rate on the video card itself because if I pan I can usually get the arrow to reappear. Should I be going in and tinkering with the settings or am I stuck programming blind?

[JBowman]

According to those specs it looks like it's the GTX 460 SE card.

 

I wonder what kind of times a GTX570 would get? It's $100 less than a Quadro 2000!

[Thee Rickster ™]

NVIDIA GTX460E = 10:32

 

That 460 smokes anything I have seen!

 

That one surprises me as it's a gaming card, a reasonably priced one at that

 

 

Does not surprise me.

 

I use a GTS 250 at home and it is the same speed as my Quadro 2000, no difference except the price.

 

You all may forget that CNC put out a patch that (nor surprising)resolved the gaming card issue, some where

in the X4 MU's. No time to dig that topic up or the update topic. it was a sticky when it first came out

to resolve weird card issues, like very dark or black screen's i believe in both verify and regular MC viewing....etc.

[Guest]

You all may forget that CNC put out a patch that (nor surprising)resolved the gaming card issue, some where

in the X4 MU's.

 

That wasn't a "gaming card" issue

 

It was a driver support issue, that was seen across MANY cards, including Quadro's