Funny I just downloaded drivers unzipped them to the ATI dir then went to the control panel,system,hardware, device managment, Video, propertys, Update divers. Point to the updated drivers and said done. Only thing that came up was the question. Would you like to reboot now? Sure you didnt install a control panel or something? But I am doing ATI and man it works great! I might replace my nvidia at work with a 9800 XT then convert it to a FireGL X2! Should have known, Canada. He is just looking for a fight so he can hit you with a hockey stick.

I wish you luck. Just so you know there is a really good Mastercam post out there that was writen at Haas factory that can be had for "Cheap". Its a real sweet post to. The Guy even let me used it for a month while my custom post was being writen by Camix, for a small fee . Took us quite awhile to get the drilling cycles right and our retracts correct. Once you think you have thought of even possible retract Bang another one jumps up and smacks you in the face. Oh Camix has Haas post too with a built in Simulation package.

Jay Kramer That quote was from lilgit NOT me. I am Fred Mitchell

Fact is I wish there was something we could do to ATI. OpenGL is a windows approved engine yet ATI can put known errors in its drivers so it has OpenGL error. They have to be aware of the errors cause the FireGL drivers fix everything. Yet no where on the box does it state 9700 Pro NOT fully windows compatible. Or even NOT OpenGL compatible. Something that says "We mangled these drivers so you have to buy a FireGL". If it was just speed thing I could understand but all those errors. When they put Windows XP compliant you would think that ment all aspects of Windows. I used to play a Game called Tribes 2. It is an OpenGL game. What a nightmare to keep working. Every time there is a ATI drivers update everyone goes and gets it just to find out its no better. They are all hoping the next drivers will fix all the problems. None of them can understand how a card that runs so great in brand new games runs so bad in a 3 year old one. Lilgit, Read up the post Kwolf linked gives info and the other link gives the step by step.

http://www.vericut.com/probing.htm

Veri-Probe from Veri-Surf will do this as with Vericut. Veri-porbe does it inside Mastercam. I think Vericut does it as a Gcode edit. I have only sat thru the demo of Vericut so I am by no mean a expert.

I guess since most of you do not have ATI's you did not read the whole artical. Can't say I blame you thats alot of info. While I know little of the geforce cards the ATI 9700Pro and the FireGL X1 are the same card. Look at the bottom of the second page. 12 bench tests run all well within 1% of each other. Sometimes the softmod 9700pro wins some times the Real Firegl. I did notice this was not true for the Geforce. There was some cases where the soft modded card fell behind. Just go look. page 2 green graphics at the bottom. http://www.nvworld.ru/docs/sfgl_e.html

Since the firegl does not support AA I think it will score very low in the Mark2001 3d and very very low in 2003. This is the reason I am building the double boot system. 9700 pro drivers owns the games. Firegl owns the Cad. I play Bf 1942 and the card works great but the lack of AA is noticable.

I will be working on a duel boot system this week end. I will beable to boot my AMD 2800 with either the 9700 drivers or the FireGL drivers. Anyone know a bench test for Mastercam? Right now i just open the biggest model I can find hit the end key and measure the FPS. Any other ideas on measuring preformance?

Thanks for the added info Kwolf. My home 9700 was a major problem for me thats why I did the research into the ATI. I convertered about 3 weeks ago and runs better then my work Dell now. It used to be too many graphic errors to mention. Now I dont have to stay after work when I have a hot project! Soon as James reports back I might try that mod at work. As for the hardware lacking here some benchs. http://www.nvworld.ru/docs/sfgl_e.html This is not for the hardware noob. I have done 3 conversions now first one went smooth second one I had to manualy install the seprate multi monitor support. By dumb mistake I installed the secondary monitor in the primary spot and could not access windows. Had to boot safe mode and uninstall drivers and start all over. I was abit more carful with the third. FYI just so some the board guys dont think I am doing something funny I have 2 logins. One from home and one from work. I also post under "Gorn" [ 03-05-2004, 12:23 AM: Message edited by: DC Gorn ]

From eMastercam: "ATI's commercial line of cards which include the Radeon, Rage, All In Wonder, and Xpert series are not recommended. As it stands, ATI is notorious for having weak OpenGL implementations in its commercial drivers which can result in poor performance and instability in OpenGL-based applications such as Mastercam. ATI's workstation line of cards, FireGL, do not appear to be plagued by OpenGL issues." I am a mastercam user and a hobbiest PC builder who likes ATI. I agree with the above statment 100%. I just wanted to explain. The fireGL card are very pricey. The current FireGL X2 256 sells for around $800. Now the part ATI does not want you to know the 9800 XT 256 (gaming card) is the same card as the FireGL X2 256. Just like the 9700Pro 128 = FireGL X1 128. The FireGL X1 still sells for $500 while the 9700Pro can be had for $180. ATI makes a nice margin on its Cad card so they write their gaming card drivers to mess up in cad softwares. This is not just a Mastercam issue. If the $180 gaming card could do what the Cad card could no one would buy those high end cards. All those Pro-E users would have nothing to brag about. How do I know this? I have converted my 9700Pro into a FireGL X1. This remove all graphic errors I had. I had allot of them. My home AMD 2800 with FireGL conversion now out preforms my Dell P4 2.8 with a GF 5600 (256). With the same model open my FireGL get almost twice the FPS as the 5600. The 5600 has twice the ram. Before you go getting all mad at ATI know this. Geforce does the same exact thing. The GF4 is equal to the Quadro4. A card costing atleast twice the gaming version. The only differnts is the drivers. Geforce just does not go as far as screwing things up. They know they have a maket in the low end Cad systems they wish to keep. But they are holding back what the card could do in cad. The reason I have not listed the new Geforce cards is that we have not yet seen a convertion of these cards. Of course ATI does not want you to change your card into a firegl. At first it was easy. Just change the PCI address in the Video card Bios and Download the right drivers. ATI caught on quickly and start add stuff so the newest driver can not be converted. There are scrips around so the ATI and Geforce conversion can be done. Just don't bet on future driver support. For you tech heads you can research more here: http://forums.guru3d.com