Guess I have no choice but learn to live with it then. Thanks.

Home sick today. Left the Dell monitor at work yesterday. Have 24" Samsung's at home. I can already tell the color and resolution is far better on the Dell 2408 WFP then on the 24" Samsung. Can I get a zoomed screen shot of the left side of the part that is pictured above and uses the Quadro 3500? I think I see jagged lines. Maybe the thicker line size shows jaggedness more? I don't see any jagged lines in bogusmill's screen shot which has thinner lines: http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n303/978cnc/2408WFP.jpg

If anyone else would like to post screen shots of their wireframe display I would appreciate it. If I rotate my display I can get the lines to lose their "jaggedness" if I play with the rotation and watch the lines.

quote: are you talking about wireframe all by itself? Yes.

The black DVI cable with white connector ends. Both monitor cables go from the monitors to the video card.

quote: What line width are you set on? I use the smallest. I have chord height set to .0005 in the shading config page, edge tolerance .0002 on solids page. Changed all my settings to match what you wrote above and it made no difference. It's a little hard to tell from your screen shot but it does appear to look better than mine. I don't see the jagged lines that I have.

quote: are you running your resolution at 1900 x 1200?? Yes.

My new Dell 2408 WFP monitor showed up Monday. Since I'm spending so much time at work lately I brought it in and set it up here. Color and sharpness of the Dell 2408 WFP blow away my work monitor which is a HP LP2465 but I'm still not happy with the wireframe display. Depending on how I rotate my wireframe the lines are still very jagged. Is there a setting in Mastercam or elsewhere that I can change to improve my display of wireframe? I'm using an Nvidia Quadro FX1300 set to SolidWorks for Open GL. Is it possible that I need a more expensive video card to give me the kind of clear / non-jagged wireframe display that I desire?

quote: That may infact happen. However in past CPU launches they have put only the top dollar versions in the supply chain for the gotta have it now/first crowd then 2-4 months later start to release the slower variants. Be interesting to see if this does indeed happen. I understand your perspective now.

quote: Where the hell are the people who write this software? Why are they so silent? Thank you for posting this. I would like to see CNC Software more active in the Enhancements Forum where many people have put a lot of effort into suggesting ways Mastercam can be improved. Most posters have not received any response to their suggestions.

quote: I would recommend spending the extra $200 for the Q9650. Bruce, I'm going to wait until Nov 17th and see what happens. If I do go with the older architecture I will take your advice and go with the Q9650.

Bogusmill, why would having double the bandwidth of a 1600 FSB be a bad thing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_QuickPath_Interconnect "The initial Nehalem implementation uses a 20-bit wide 25.6 GB/s link (as reported in the Intel Nehalem Speech on IDF). This 25.6 GB/s link provides exactly double the theoretical bandwidth of Intel's 1600 MHz FSB used in the X48 chipset." quote: It will be april before anything other than the $1200 version is available The way I read it the $562 2.93GHz Core i7-940 will be available Nov 17th. I posted a question on Tom's Hardware Forum and got this response about Nehalem CPU's: "64mb level 1 cache 256kb level 2 cache per core...unshared 8mb level 3 cache shared clock for clock i7 is showing large gains verses yorkfield proccesors. 2.93 seems to out perform or stay even wt q9770. or to put it simply a $500 to $600 Nehalem should out perform a $1400 to $1600 penryn."

This isn't getting any easier. New Intel chips are due in the middle of November. http://blogs.zdnet.com/processors/?p=203 The 3.2 GHz Core i7-965XE is $999 and the 2.93GHz Core i7-940 is $562. Is the Nehalem processor going to have any significant advantages over a Core2Quad Q9550 BX 2.83 GHZ @ 1333 with 12MB Cache? What size cache does the 3.2 GHz Core i7-965XE or the 2.93GHz Core i7-940 have? Making the decision to buy the Dell 2408 monitor was a snap compared to this. It should be here Monday or Tuesday.

quote: You should reconsider overclocking. With today's proccessors if you are not overclocked you are wasting speed that you ALREADY PAID FOR. In the old days this was not the case so much, but things have changed. Jaz, bogusmill: If I decide to overclock don't you think I might as well get the Asus Rampage Formula and DDR 3?

I've only played with FBM a little... as in very little. From the tutorial I did it appears to produce very inefficient toolpaths. The only advantage I can see is that it might eliminate some druggy but I would then need to edit the heck out of everything it produces. Our shop is so busy and I'm still coming up to speed on other aspects of Mastercam that I haven't had time to really dig further to see if the toolpaths FBM produces can be made to be much more efficient. I am curious to know how well something like UG NX CAM Express does with feature based machining because from what I've seen it looks much more advanced that what Mastercam has at the moment. Even if it worked I’m not sure I’d be given the time to properly set it up. I certainly would like to hear from others doing prototype machining if they feel FBM has been beneficial to them... even if it’s in another product. The way it appears to me at this point is that FBM was added to Mastercam so that CNC Software could say we have it too so don’t switch to CAMWorks or whatever. I know I would have much rather seen the work go into fixing the items I have listed on my blog and have posted to the enhancements section of this forum. I'm still waiting for CNC Software to comment on most of the suggestions for enhancements that have been posted to the enchancements section of this forum.

quote: My wireframe display is basically flawless... Helpful. Thank you.

Extremely helpful article to me. I see your point after reading this article and I trust the source. quote: I have several .CATPart files that are so big they won't rotate well in XP 32 bit but on the same PC in Catia x64/Vista Ultimate x64 I can turn up all the visualization settings and those parts manipulate very smoothly. Is the CATIA your running a 32 bit application or 64 bit? If it's 32 bit are you saying a 32 bit application can really benefit from the extra RAM that 64 bit Vista provides? quote: I love my Asus Rampage Formula, it's a bit pricier at $289. I don't intent to do any overclocking. I take it that the increase in RAM capability is what is also unique about this board and one reason you think so highly of it? quote: I run a GTX 260 with no problems in MCX3 or Catia. This board got horrible reviews when I Googled it. What do you like about it? Thank your for your valuable input and all the helpful information you have provided.

Colin and Murray Mold and Die, I think the problem was that I was not exporting the machining operations to a folder that I create and name the same name as the Toolpath Group I want to import. When I name the folder the name of the Toolpath Group this works with just one problem... machining operation number one is shoved under the Machine Group. The rest of the machining operations come in under the Toolpath Group name I saved. Not a big deal to drag machining operation 1 down to the named Toolpath Group but I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong to cause this problem.

No problem exporting and saving operations and then importing them with one exception... I can't seem to find a way to export and import the toolpath group name.

I'll check out Best Buy. If they don't have it I'll mail order one and specify ground shipping. Thanks.

Is the Dell monitor mail order only?

quote: Even at the finest resolution, angled lines looked like fat jagged stairs.. I sold it and bough a Dell 24" Ultrasharp..It was a lot more money, but the difference was night and day. What resolution are you running?

quote: I love my Asus Rampage Formula I'll look into it. Thanks. quote: I run a GTX 260 with no problems in MCX3 or Catia Don't know what a GTX 260 is. I'll also look into this. quote: Too much power, drop back to a 750Watt. I think it was only $100 more for the 1000 watt. I'll check to be sure. What if I need the extra power in the future? quote: Don't go dual core, they have half the cache of a quad. Thanks. quote: Don't wait, the next CPU's out will cost over $1000 when first released next year and motherboards will be in the $400 range. It will be a year before both are affordable. Thanks. quote: I'm pretty happy with Vista Ultimate X64 and if you go that route you'll wish you had bought 8 gig's RAM. Rampage Extreme supports 16Gigs of DDR3 and is the fastest board on the planet! Check out article. What will Vista give me that XP Pro doesn't?

quote: What monitor and resolution?HP LP2465 1920 x 1200 quote: I've noticed that if you use the smallest line width, it can be difficult to see the wireframe sometimes. I turn up the thickness of my wireframe to the "middle" setting, so it makes my wireframe thicker and easier to see... Our VAR suggested this and it certainly helps but it's still not as sharp and as clear as I'd like the wireframe to be.

quote: The FX 570 card will work, but it is an entry level card. The FX1700 will offer almost double the performance for some things like triangle fill shading (almost double the fill rate). This is due to the fact that it has twice the RAM. What effect does this have on solid verify? Will my Mastercam wireframe geometry look better? I'm not overjoyed with what Mastercam wireframe geometry looks like running on an FX 1300 will settings set to SolidWorks. It's way better than it was but it's still leaves a lot to be desired compared to say wireframe in SolidWorks. I like crisp, clear and clean wireframe and I don't get that now.