New PC, CPU won't go over 13% on Surface Toolpath Generation

[Mr. Wizzard]

So, I've got a new pc going, details in signature.

Running X6 MU3 and doing surface toolpaths.

When it's calculating one, the CPU usage won't go over 13% and locks up mastercam. Many times I close it, after waiting 15 or 20 minutes.

How can I get my processor to "work" more and get this thing sped up?

Am I incorrectly assuming this thing should fly or do I need to adjust settings somewhere?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I am no IT wizard

[Reko]

Sounds about right... your siggy says you have 8 cores... 100/8= 12.5... so if one core is processing... yeah.

[Reko]

BTW... that's the cool thing about the newer toolpaths... they multi-thread so you can keep working while they are processing... and on your rig... it can handle 8 toolpaths at a time.

 

Nice!

[Reko]

...the CPU usage won't go over 13% and locks up mastercam...

When you use the old toolpaths... yup... sit and wait.

[Mr. Wizzard]

It doesn't appear to be using all 8 cores, though, only 4 of them.

And why would they work faster on an older computer than a newer computer? If I run the same thing on an older one, it's much faster.

it's not a tough toolpath, but takes 7 minutes to regen. i'll try in X7 and see what happens.

[Reko]

What toolpath are you using?

[Mr. Wizzard]

Surface finish flowline, one of my personal favorites.

Tried same toolpath in X7, got bored watching it think for 5 minutes and closed it.

In the past, this toolpath should have taken no more the 15-20 seconds, tops.

[Reko]

Yeah, I agree... something is wrong there. Can you post a file?

[Mr. Wizzard]

Yep, just a quick sample I made.

Operation 1 is unfiltered.

Operation 2 is the same toolpath, but filtered. = 6 minutes 40 seconds to generate.

FLOWLINE_TEST.MCX-6

[Reko]

Wow... that's crazy, but yeah, my rig is taking just as long. No answers here... I tried it in X8 too and the time was just as long.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Turn off hyperthreading if you have it on.

[Mr. Wizzard]

where do I do that?

[billb]

Hi,

Operation #1 in your part has arc filter turned off and it regens on my computer quite quickly. Operation #2 has arc filter turned on, at 5% for cut tolerance and 95% for arc fitting and it takes a long time to process. I moved the slider to a 30% - 70% position and regenerated and it regenerated relatively briskly and output arcs for the motion. To get the fullest arc fitting, you'll need a filter tolerance slightly larger than the cut tolerance but they can be pretty close. 45% / 55% or 49% / 51% might do the trick.

 

Oh, and, yes, classic surface toolpaths are not multithreaded and still process in the main thread, so, patience might be required. If things are just taking time, you can press ESC to terminate processing.

 

Bill

[Thee Awbade™]

I don't have X6 but I tried out your paths on X7,

 

OP1 = about 2-3 seconds 

 

OP2 = About 3 Minutes

 

Both seemed to work fine though. 

 

I changed the total tolerance on OP2 from .0005 to .001 and it reduced my time down to about 20 seconds

[Mr. Wizzard]

billb

I tried changing the filter to 35% cut 65% filter and that fixed it and gave me a 25 second regen time.

Also, I changed the scallop height from .005 to .002, just to make sure it was crunching.

that did speed it up, however, I'm curious as to why?

I'll have to try on the old computer later to get a comparable time, as I think it will run faster.

I'll keep experimenting, thanks.