Thanks Keith, I'll check it out.

Hey Mold, Don't be afraid to ask a "dumb" question. To make a long story short, the fellow that handled these things quit and the job went to me to keep things running. So I'm very new to this and don't have much of a clue about these things regarding MC. Maybe I'm not using the right terminology. I'm talking about the red thingy that's on the back of the computer in the parallel port. My understanding is this computer is called the nethasp server. Do you call the red thing a "sim" or a "nethasp" or what? Anyway, this machine has MC loaded on it, but nobody uses MC on it, it's kept on all the time so two other workstations running MC can see it on the network. 99% of the time, all works well. It's only occasionally that we get the error message described above. What I plan on doing anyway is eliminating this computer (the nethasp server) entirely and moving the sim to one of the workstations running MC and making that machine the nethasp server, but that's a project for next week.

Every once in a while one of our programmers has Mill or Design shut down on him unexpectedly. The message he gets is "all available licenses are in use". However, no one else is on the system. Anyone know what would cause this? I did move the workstation that had the hasp on it a few days ago to another place in the building but it's still on the network and I got all the workstations working in Mastercam after the move. Any ideas?

I'm not quite understanding how to edit the nethasp.ini as Keith indicated. Could someone expand a bit on this.

Thanks for all the help folks!

I'm assisting a friend in upgrading some workstations for Mastercam. One of the workstations we're replacing has that thingy on the back in a port, I believe they call it the nethasp(?). I just built a new P4 workstation and will need to move the nethasp to the new computer. How do I do this so everything, ie, the other workstations, work correctly?

I'm an Attorney from Upland California and my hobby is computers. Forgive me, but I don't know anything about Mastercam or CAD/CAM. I'm assisting a friend by building and setting up some new workstations so I'll be asking a lot of newbie questions in this regard.

OK guys, here's the card I'm gonna order: PNY GEFORCE4 TI4400 DDR 128MB AGP $239.00. Look ok? I think some of the difficulty I had with this decision is I don't understand the difference between 3d gaming and 3d cad/cam design.

OK guys, looks like it's gonna be the G4. Thanks much!!

Jay, I appreciate your time and help and no, this guy is not into cad/cam, he's more on the video side. I'm just afraid of making a wrong choice. If the Quadro is better long-term, we'll spend the money for it. On the other hand, if the G4 will be fine and just as fast for our use, we'll save a bit of $$. The difference in $$ is not a big issue.

One more comment: Another fellow told me this regarding the G4 and Quadro: "The Quadro cards from nVidia and the Fire cards from ATI have hardware assisted rendering -- so both 2D and 3D rendering is effortless. The GeFroce4 is software rendering -- on a complicated design, they could go have lunch and it won't be done. Ron, they need to do this right -- either the Quadro or the Fire. I prefer the Fire line for it's pure picture quality, but the Quadro are faster." (End quote) Do you guys agree with that statement?? TIA!

So is the consensus that the GForce4 will do what the Quadro4 will do for less money?

Cadcam, Thanks for the reply; Would the GForce card be adequate for 3d work? We don't mind spending the extra money, we just want a card that will get the job done.

Please, someone educate me on video cards for Mastercam!! I'm a newbie to mastercam but I have extensive experience in building pc's. I'm building a few new pc's for friend that uses Mastercam 9. I'm considering a P4 2.26, 1ghz of ram. I'm not sure which way to go with the video card. At first I was considering the Matrox G550 at about $100. I've been told it's very fast for 2D work, but is slow with 3D. A friend of mine recommended the Quadro4 700XGL for 3D use. My friend does about 15% of the design in 3D and the rest in 2D. Should I go with the with the Quadro4 700XGL at about $500?