When you've got to crank a part out asap use what your comfortable with, that will take some of the pressure off getting up to speed with x asap. But do try and force yourself to use x on as many projects as possible. Oh yes a few training sessions with some book exercise or streaming teacher can do wonders with getting the basics down.

You're going to need an available PCI Express or at least an AGP slot. Cards aren't made for regular PCI slots anymore.

I haven't used this myself, but have you checked those paths to see if the files are there? It kind of sounds like it can't find those files it's referencing in the chooksverisurf folder.

Browse to that file through My Computer / Explorer, right-click and go to properties and make sure it hasn't been set to "Read Only". If it has, you need to uncheck that attribute so that the file can be written to. If it's not set as "Read Only", then you may not have the appropriate write permissions setup for the Mastercam folder/subfolders with your windows login.

Roger, Exact same NC file placed in two folders. I know there are many solutions that would work for this (a simple file backup / synchronization tool in Windows for example). Doing a simple File > Save As from the Editor would also work fine IMO, but the customer wants this automated.

Before I start looking into a VBscript or Nethook solution I was wondering if anyone has created or come across a VB script or Nethook that already does this. I need the posted NC file to be created in two different locations.

quote: ... it was a video driver issue Z2G wouldn't have helped with much.There's quite a bit of info included in the Z2G files that could actually help even in this situation. System information (including your video card type, resolution, color depth and driver version) is included in a text file that can be examined.

I've encountered problems with this when the custom tool file does not reside in the standard tool library location (ie. c:mcamxmilltools). It seems to lose the location/path of the custom file if it doesn't reside in that default tools folder. I haven't really come up with any workaround other than to save the custom tool file into that local directory on each PC. I did submit this to QC so I believe it's in the queue for an enhancement/fix.

Well it sounds like you're using the right options. I don't usually see this issue unless you're transforming a transform, in which case things get more difficult. Grouping NCI output by operation type is definitely what you want, but you should see a difference between the two options if you're just transforming normal operations (not transform operations). If you're definitely not seeing any difference then I'm not sure what is happening there.

I sent this in to QC so we'll see what they say on this problem. I think the culprit, at least in the file I looked at yesterday, is that the "work offset" checkbox inside the Planes button was checked for some operations and not checked for others. The operations that had this option checked were ones that weren't posting the offsets properly. For some reason this work offset setting in the planes was overriding the transform operation's settings. You might check that in your operations to see if the checkbox is checked, and if so, un-check it. Edit common parameters was an option that worked in this case because all of the operations shared the same WCS, Tplane and Cplane, so we could edit them all at the same time and turn the work offset checkbox off.

You could check out laptopvideo2go for modified INF files that allow you to install whatever Nvidia driver. These are primarily for allowing a laptop user to install drivers intended for desktop cards. Each driver has a built-in list of cards that the driver will install on. The modified INF basically adds more cards to the list. I've done a bit of experimenting myself on my laptop with the files and am currently using desktop drivers. Nvidia usually tells you to go to the laptop manufacturer for drivers, but in my case, Dell hasn't updated the Vista driver for my laptop since January. I'm missing features that I used to have in XP (one which I need for interfacing with a projector properly), so the desktop drivers fixed that. This is definitely a use at your own risk venture though and I can't endorse it. I usually recommend going with the 84.26 Nvidia Quadro drivers for users running the Quadro card, they've seemed to be solid.

The settings you would like to change are actually in the Mill_Inch.defaults file, not in the machine or control definition files themselves. The post above mine shows where to change this in the control definition, but you could also copy your Mill_Inch.defaults file manually from the old location to the new if you would prefer. If you've spent any time changing defaults for each operation type you might save some time by copying the file itself rather than trying to modify the new defaults file to match the old. If your X directory was c:mcamx, you will find the file in c:mcamxmillops Just copy this to the same path in the new X2 directory (ie. c:mcamx2millops). Your paths may be different, but this is the general idea.

I'm not sure on the cause of this but you could try to manually unregister and then re-register this file. Before trying this make sure Mastercam is closed. Go to Start > Run. In the open box type in: regsvr32 -u c:WINDOWSsystem32HHActiveX.dll Click open and you should get a message that the file was unregistered. Do the same thing (Start > Run) only this time remove the "-u" from the line: regsvr32 c:WINDOWSsystem32HHActiveX.dll You should then get a message that the file was successfully registered. See if the problem still exists.

Oops! Guess it was just my mistake. I had the whole solution selected in the solution explorer and it showed me different options under the "Project" Menu. I selected the NetHook2Example folder and got the same menu options as the doc file has documented. I'm still curious though if I'm going to run into limitations with any of these basic samples & examples with the express edition.

I think this may have been covered before, but is it possible to use VC# 2005 Express edition or VC# 2003 (visual studio 2003 professional) with the new .NET 2.0 API? On this computer I only have VC# 2005 Express Edition and started working with the .NET 2.0 Samples & Examples. On the first step of the read me first.doc file for installation it is walking me through some settings that don't appear the same in VC# Express. Just curious if the express edition has what it takes to go through those samples & examples. I do have VS 2003 Professional but wasn't sure if that is going to work either.

Just wanted to mention that there are far more variables to consider than just CPU speed, amount/speed of RAM and OS. Hard disk speed being a major factor left out IMO. One of the testers with nice quick times had dual SCSI drives, which is probably another big contributor to the faster regen times. Other factors like software tweaks, windows virtual memory settings, motherboard, the software (drivers) that are running all the hardware etc. are all going to add up to faster or slower times. Also keep in mind that not all model #'s are equal. When I purchased my Dell M170 laptop last year it had many options for CPU, RAM, Hard Disk and Video that could dramatically change the performance, so someone could get the best of the best available and someone else the lowest and end up with the same model # but different hardware. For future computer buys I would take into consideration hard disk speed. Do some research on the different hardware available in this area. I think it's often one of the most overlooked components and can really make a difference.

Try moving your configuration file from the mcam9 folder out to a temporary location, then launch Mastercam. This will force it to re-create a default config file and might help.

Many have had good luck by disabling desktop composition. You could also try to adjust for best performance which turns off a lot of the graphical bells & whistles in the OS. I believe both of these methods will disable the "Windows Aero" theme so you won't have some of the fancy eyecandy (transparent windows comes to mind). Right-Click on "Computer" then go to Properties. On the left hand side, click on Advanced System Settings. Go to the Advanced tab, then click on the "Settings" button under the Performance heading. On the "Visual Effects" tab you can either just uncheck the "Enable desktop composition" option, or you can set the radio button to "Adjust Windows for Best Performance" which will uncheck all options. After this procedure if you are left with the plain old Windows 2000 looking Start Button / Task Bar, then you can go into Control Panel's Appearance and Personalization category and then choose "Change the Theme". You should be able to set it to Windows Vista and get the new Vista Start Button / Task Bar back.

I just ran the new Mastercam Direct for Inventor (X2 MR1) for a customer and experienced the same thing. I uninstalled the previous MC Direct before I installed the new one. The install goes through (rather quickly it seemed) without any problem, but once we open up Inventor there's no Mastercam Direct listed in the Addins. I haven't tried the procedure for registering the file yet, I'll give that a shot. Oh and this was with Inventor 11.

I have to second Glenn's suggestion for taking a MD, CD & PST and making a copy of them with a different name. This would be really great in order to simplify the process of copying default MD, CD & PST files and making them link up properly when renamed. I think this functionality is something almost anyone would be able to appreciate. Nice work on this utility Zerren!

GoToMyPC seems to work the best in my experience. It meets all of the criteria you mentioned in your original post.

I had the customer try setting processor affinity with no improvement in the slowdowns. The RAM on each machine is 2GB. Using standard 50% toolpath buffering in X2. Tried disabling hardware acceleration, etc.

Is anyone out there running a Core 2 Duo processor with Mastercam X2? I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with slowdowns on a system using an E6400 processor & ATI FireGL v7200 video card when running multiple sessions of MCX. I expect the usual graphical anomalies associated with the ATI video cards but am not sure it would contribute to this slowdown in multiple sessions. Comparison is being done between this computer and a Pentium D with an Nvidia card. The Pentium D + Nvidia card does not experience the slowdowns when running multiple sessions. If anyone has any insight into this I would appreciate any feedback. If you're running a Core 2 Duo processor and multiple sessions work fine please let me know.

There may be one step that is missing here. In the catv4.acc file you should delete everything out except for the line with the actual numbers in it. Open it up with Notepad to do the edits and save.

Sounds to me like what Pete Rimkus said is happening. If you had X2 & X MR2 installed on the same PC it would have installed the newer swdocumentmgr.dll file which enables importing Solidworks 2007 files. Regardless of whether you were in X2 or X MR2 it would still import them. Now that you only have X MR2 installed it has the older swdocumentmgr.dll file which will not import SolidWorks 2007 files. If it is a problem with registering the .dll file I've found that running a repair installation of Mastercam usually corrects the problem.