How does PC affect speed?

[bill south]

Hey Guys;

What effect (running mach 3) does video card, processor speed and ram have on machine speed? I think I understand the latter but I never considered the video card.
Thanks in advance.
Bill

[ger21]

Videocard shouldn't really have any effect on Mach3, except when rotating or moving the toolpath display, which you don't do while the machine is running, and even then, the simple display in Mach3 doesn't need a powerful video card at all.

Memory should only comes into play on very large g-code files. I wouldn't recommend less than 512MB, though, due to the large amount that XP uses, and with the price of memory today,I'd get 1 Gig if buying a new PC to run Mach.

Processor speed is the most important factor when running Mach, especially if you need to use the higher kernel speeds (35 and 45 Khz). If your getting eatic performance on a slow PC (less than 1 Ghz), a faster PC can make a big difference.