Graphics Card Setting Recommendations for Mastercam

[austing]

I have a question about settings for your video card for Mastercam.

 

What are the recommended settings for a NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700?

 

Also, is this a good graphics card for Mastercam?

[gcode]

The FX-3700 is an excellent medium duty card for Mastercam

ON the System Config/Screen page you should have

 

Open Gl on

Dishable Hardware acceleration off

Disable Front Buffer off

 

In the Nvidia settings, I just run default settings

[austing]

That is how I have my Mastercam set-up. A while back someone told me to switch my Nividia settings to Dassault Systems Catia-compatable. I also notice that a program settings is available so that you can set-up Mastercam specific settings.

 

My graphics card is shaky at best. When I got o verify and stl compare I get white outs and it seems as if my screen is trying to refresh. It takes forever and I can't even get out of the compare before it finishes it's business.

 

I am not trying to move the view during a compare (I learned that lesson a long time ago).

[Bill Henderson]

That is how I have my Mastercam set-up. A while back someone told me to switch my Nividia settings to Dassault Systems Catia-compatable. I also notice that a program settings is available so that you can set-up Mastercam specific settings.

 

My graphics card is shaky at best. When I got o verify and stl compare I get white outs and it seems as if my screen is trying to refresh. It takes forever and I can't even get out of the compare before it finishes it's business.

 

I am not trying to move the view during a compare (I learned that lesson a long time ago).

 

I would think that if your toolpath (stock model) and stl are fairly large most if not all mid range cards might choke with the compare. That could be a huge amount of data to have all up at once considering fine detail and resolution settings.

[austing]

I am even getting "white outs" when generating toolpaths.

[MotorCityMinion]

"I am even getting "white outs" when generating toolpaths.'

 

I get that with any video card. Settings do not make a difference. Crunching a tool path should not have an effect on the video but it does. Move the mouse, white out and locked out till it's finished.  On the plus side, this forces you to seriously think about your settings before closing out the box and has in some way made me a better programmer.

[gcode]

"I am even getting "white outs" when generating toolpaths.'

 

I get that with any video card. Settings do not make a difference. Crunching a tool path should not have an effect on the video but it does. Move the mouse, white out and locked out till it's finished. On the plus side, this forces you to seriously think about your settings before closing out the box and has in some way made me a better programmer.

 

 

not seeing that with the Quadro FX-3800 on my home machine or

the FX-4800 at work

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Not seeing that with my rig either...

[MotorCityMinion]

Fx500, fx3450, fx3500, Firegl 5600, and 9800gt. All these cards caused white outs during tp calculation for me in XP32. I know, they are not the greatest cards either. If I move the mouse or enter another app., MC whites out. Latest drivers and I run my system OS almost naked. 25 processes at most and all eye candy disabled.

 

I do use rocketdock, maybe that's the culprit.

 

 

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I do use rocketdock, maybe that's the culprit.

 

There was an app a number of year back for Windows that improved the look of windows graphics-wise, but you paid a price whe running CAD/CAM a lot of the time. I'd be willing to bet you're right.

[austing]

Just to clarify.

 

My white outs are normal?

[gcode]

no...

[austing]

Does anyone have suggestions other than purchasing a new card?

[gcode]

are you running the latest drivers

 

Is your siggy accurate? Vista sucks.. you might want to upgrade to Win7x64

[Guest]

If you're on Vista.

 

Right click on the Mastercam launch icon, go to the compatibility tab and click the box to disable desktop composition.

 

I will say even after doing this on my old Vista box I could still have graphics weirdness at times, it never was a great platform

[Craig Madsen from CM3D]

As noted in a couple of posts - I am NOT seeing whiteouts or other graphics artifacts. I DO have both 64bit and 32bit computers though, and the 32bit system with 4gigs of ram DOES share memory with the graphics card. It uses a 'mapped address' system to share the memory / add to the memory of the graphics card.

 

On the 32bit system, I have had issues - which is why I only rarely use it. On that system, even adding a graphics card with 1gig of dedicated memory didn't help. I would consider, if you are using a 32bit system, hunting down another computer you can use for a half hour or so, and trying Mastercam with your part that is demonstrating the problem and seeing if the problem doesn't go away. I don't think it will matter what graphics card it has.

 

Just a thought.

[austing]

Thanks for the replies.

 

JParis - I go to the compatability tab and I don't get the option to check any of the boxes.

 

Sounds like I neet to get out of Vista and get to Windows 7 ASAP.

[Guest]

Try clicking the "Run as Administrator" see if that gives you the option