GeForce FX series, GF4 Ti series,GF 4 MX series.

Nice tip. But why don't you try Total Commander? Total Commander's web address It's the best and fastest file management with many other tools like ftp,LPT connection,packing archives,multi rename, editing reg, much more ... I've seen. Been working with it since 1998.

+1 to Iskander. IGES's the first format to try when I want to translate another CAD model. Btw, are MAYA models tesselated data like STL or NURBS?

Here's my findings: MOBO ambient temp: 25 C = constant CPU temp before launching MC: 35 C CPU Fan Speed : 3515 rpm After launching MC I kept it idle for about 10min to reach steady state conditions, Mobo ambient temp: 25 C = previous value CPU temp: 47 C CPU Fan Speed: 3688 rpm Thanks God this issue addressed in version 10. Athlon XP 1800 ASUS A7V333 Oh yeah and MC 9.1 SP2

The best way to import SolidWorks/SolidEdge part file is saving them in Parasolid and importing them to MC. All the data in part (solid/surface) can be imported to MC easily if it's saved as parasolid. And I think you need to download some patches if your saved parasolid version in v15.

Is there any other ready-made color theme for windows xp other than blue/green/silver ? Some friends at work will be happy if they can change it.

Bullines I don't think Soft Quadro is like adding some keys to registry. It patches nVidia OpenGL driver and makes windows recognize it as a quadro. Many people reported their performance before and after SPECViewPerf which has UGS/PROE/3DMAX/Lightwave/... as it's benchmark and the increase in performance is not because of over clocking GPU or its RAM. For example, with Soft Quadro you can turn on "Enable back buffer" which was only present in detonator before v5.32, I don't know why but nVidia decided to hide it and keep it only for Quadro cards. As a proof you can see SolidWorks website stating that GF2 with driver 4.0.1381.532 (with enable back buffer on) can pass all tests under SolidWorks, no other driver could pass I might add, while GF FX 5900 with detonator 44.03 passes with limitations (Limited number of accelerated windows). This limitation is due to back buffer issue. If you use rivatuner you can have this option in your OpenGL panel. I'm curious to know if with some registry keys I can have it on a GF card? Thanks

Thanks for the recommendation. Well I installed Thermal Take fan with copper core on the CPU and I think it is a good fan. The case has two fans and power supply has its own. Anyway, am I the only one to use CPU cooling software here? Any BAD exprience ?

hmmm, I don't know what to say. The temp was 45C and now 37C. I tried it on three athlons 1600-1800-2200 and all of them run cooler. Can the follwing be the answer? quote: Q: What is the difference between the three cooling options on the Athlon tab? A: With the introduction of ACPI, several different power management states have been defined. Each of these states will send bigger parts of the system into sleep (and save more power), the highest level is reached when the system is physically switched of Of the power management states defined by ACPI, two are of special interest to CpuIdle, namely S1 and C2. However, let's start with OS-Controlled state first: OS-Controlled In OS-controlled state CpuIdle's cooling loop will be disabled. Instead the OS will try to perform the cooling, if available. The benefit of using this mode with CpuIdle is that CpuIdle's chipset and CPU optimizations are still applied, but no additional thread is created. S1 and C2 S1 and C2 modes are described in detail in the ACPI specification. While S1 mode is available on all systems (HLT is exectuted), C2 mode is only available on certain chipsets. CpuIdle will try to detect and enable C2 idling on the chipset. If not available, an error message will be displayed when selecting C2 mode. If C2 mode is supported, more power savings can be gained than in S1 mode, possibly at the cost of slight performance degradation, as it would take the CPU/ PCI subsystem longer to wake up. I always use OS controlled option. BTW some manufacturers like MSI have special utility for cooling CPU on their nForce2 chipset mobos. I think they're using the same technique.

BTW I measured CPU temp with ASUS probe util which shows temp,fan speed,voltages.. It's a variable fan and also its speed is about 800-1000 rpm less.

I'm using it in WINXP Pro SP1 and CPU temp is 7 C degrees less than it was before. Am I missing something?

I have a question about these kind of software. Is it harmless to use them especially if I'm going to run MC? I installed CPUIdle and it does a good job, the CPU temp drops by 7-8 C degress. I've been running different programs like SolidWorks/Rhino/Mastercam and all of them run fine. But I just want to be sure if it generates problems whether to hardware or softwares. quote: The CpuIdle Approach Under normal circumstances the CPU isn't always active but spends much time waiting for the keyboard, harddisk or CD-ROM. What would be more logical than to turn off the CPU for that period? That's exactly what the HLT machine instruction (Opcode F4) does. Whenever the CPU encounters a HLT instruction the clock is halted and the CPU enters suspend mode until an interrupt, NMI, or reset happens. With the advent of power saving microprocessors like the Cyrix Cx486S the HLT instruction elicits an additional benefit. When "Suspend on HLT" is enabled in the configuration register the processor not only stops on HLT but also enters the power saving suspend mode And if it's harmless to use then it's a must have utility for every PC especially for Athlons.

I've been a SW user for years. And I love it for its functionalities,simplicity and speed. But I agree with Gilberto. On complex/organic surfaces while being in associative and parametric, SW gets slow. Especially if those surfaces interact with solids , like cut with surface feature, it's likely that you have problems. A tiny gap could result in rebuilt error. It has fewer tools for surface creation than MC, eg , you can't fillet between two separated surfaces. In previous versions you can not variable fillet on a quilt too. Overall , SW doesn't like surfaces much. Using other plugins like GeometryWorks can make the situation just a bit better. Using Rhino you can create complex surfaces for export to SW but you lose associativity and should create surfaces with a very tight tolerance. This is where WildFire outperforms SW. Moreover SW doesn't have good curve manipulation tools. MC usually handles surfaces better and have better tools for curves. But with all that said it doesn't necessarily make MC better than SW in CAD side. In fact drawing creation in SW, simplicity in part and assy makes it the best mid range CAD. And remember Mastercam is not MasterCAD , and you gonna have more new features in every version than MC. For instance they include some of the functionalities found in iMoldWorks in SW2004, so parting surface creation and cavity/core separation is simpler than before. The only things I wish for SW2005 in part mode is having better tools for surfaces/curves.

I'm not an expert in law or software copyright. But I'm sure what Alexey aka Unwinder, RivaTuner creator, has done is legal. Otherwise they sued him after more than 2 years of soft modding. Don't you think so? There are several other sites regarding soft modding GF and Radeon and none of them sued. So what nVidia did against soft modding? nVidia tried to improve its encryption engine so each time unwinder should change his anti-protection. Following is his word about SQ: quote: ... Second, DON'T wait for my postings abvout it on nvworld.ru, new versions of SoftQuadro etc. SQ project was discontinued after 42.70 and I'm not goint to spend time on analysing 5x.xx driver protection systems for FX family. These GPUs seemsto week to investigate time in them and currently I use R9800PRO as my primary development platform. Third, I strictly DON'T recommend to buy display adapter for modding only.

Facts: You can buy mastercam license , but you can't sell it to anyone. You can buy nVidia Gfx card , and you can sell it to anyone. You can't change any Mastercam code. But I think you can change a resistor on your own graphics card. By changing a resistor on GeForce card you make windows recognize it as Quadro too (hard mod to Quadro).

It's always been discussed in those forums that Quadro cards are slower in games than correspnding GeForce cards. So there's no speed improvements in converting a GF to Quadro when you want to try games, actually the speed decreases. The best way to measure speed improvements is running SPECView Perf 7.x . You can find those charts from various people in the guru3d forums. All state that the speed in Pro/E and UGS and Max .. improves drastically, sometimes by a factor of 3x, if and only if you patched and install correctly. HTH

You should download rivatuner utility , read the instructions . The program has those patches itself, all you should do is applying them on an unpacked version of supported detonator , like 42.51 or 45.28 for FX cards.

James I think the following is the best summary for GF owners need to soft mod their cards to Quadro. quote: .... What I have found is that the geforce 2,3 & 4 series cards can be converted to quadros using drivers up to 42.51. If you use a later driver they have protection against modding and hence cause ogl lockups. These lockups can take from 10s to a few minutes to happen so they are not always evident immediately. With the NV30/35 chipsets (FX5800 & 5900 only) there appears to be a loophole in the 45.xx series drivers that allow sq4 scripts to be applied and the ogl lockups do not occur. The fx 5600 however is a NV31 chip so this loophole does not exist for this card. The good news for fx5600 owners is that the 42.51 driver had some support for the then soon to be released fx5600. To get a fx5600 to softquadro the following works well.... 1. Download driver version 42.51. 2. Apply sq4 and nvstrap antiprotection patches. 3. Apply anisbooster patch (optional) 4. Load nvstrap and set pci id to custom - 318 (unknown device) 5. Manually load the driver and choose NV31GL. You should now have a quadro NV31GL up and running with no ogl lockups. I have tried the FX5700 (NV36) and was unable to get it to work at all, quadro or not with any 40 series driver. I expect it cannot be converted to a quadro as the 50 series drivers cannot be softquadroed without ogl lockups. The 45.33 driver does have limited support for a NV36GL but I could not get the card to work with it. (Someone may find a way around this?). The fx5200 (NV34) is not supported by the 42.51 driver nor does it have the NV30/35 loophole as far as I can tell, therefore I expect there is little hope for this card to SQ properly either. In summary the following cards can be softquadroed with the following drivers.... Geforce 2&3 series - All drivers - just need Nvstrap antiprotection for drivers above 30.82. Geforce 4 series - All drivers up to 30.82, need sq4 scripts - Drivers after 30.82 - 42.51 need sq4 and nvstrap antiprotection. - Drivers after 42.51 - No Go. Geforce FX5800/5900 - Drivers 45.xx only - need sq4, nvstrap and detonatorfxantiprotector patch. Geforce fx5600 -Driver 42.51 only - need sq4, nvstrap and set pci id to 318. Geforce fx5200 -Don't think its possible but have not tried one to prove it. Geforce fx5700 -Not possible. Excuse the long post but I hope it helps some people as many of the posts here have helped me. You can find full thread in http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=...10&pagenumber=2 HTH

Also check to see if this folder is empty: c:windowssystem32wins otherwise your pc is likely infected. I might be wrong but there should be 4 instances of svchost.exe running on pc when you open up task manager , any number other than 4 means problem.

But soft modding GF->Quadro stopped few months ago, unless you want to use detonator 42.51 for GF4 or 45.28 for GF FX 5600 and above.

Firewalls or special programs like netpeeker (for controlling upload/download) can block it or limit its speed.

quote: There are no surfaces or solids ,there are something ,that behaves as both of them (at least ,they try to present this so ). Exactly, in TD or VX a surface is a solid with infinite material on one of its side. So you can do any possible solid operation (fillet, shell...) as well as surface special operations. I hope next versions of MC support it. And thanks for letting me know that this is the case in Cimatron-E too. [ 03-02-2004, 06:36 PM: Message edited by: kwolf ]

So in this case virtually any CAD is a hybrid modeler, isn't it ?

Oh yeah and I forgot to say Quick Reply's cool.

Thanks Iskandar , Is it possible "to do boolean operation(union/subtract/common) between a surface(sheet) and a solid" in Cimatron-E? I saw it in VX and TD and imo it's very nice and handy as well as time saver. But I've never heard a Parasolid nor an ACIS based CAD can do that. Could it be that the kernels incapable? Or maybe no CAD maker including MC/SW sees any real advantage?