Mastercam expert!!!!!

[dmealer]

Hey guys,
I am about to buy a laptop. I wish to run MC X on it. What video cards will work? In a perfect world, they would have a NVIDIA card in them. I also wish to run solidworks. SW isn't the problem. Will MC X run on other cards than the NVIDIA and ATI acceptebly? I am only worried about MC X. Of particular interest is the Intel media accelerator 900. Any input is greatly appreciated.

Regards
Dalen Mealer

[drachir8]

Every laptop that I have run MC on I have had to play with the Hardware acceleration in the display properties. I usually have to slow it down a bit. I have had to do this on many different laptops with different video cards. It usually doesn't cause problems with the other cad/cam programs such as SW or ProE but it will cause some problems if you want to play back a DVD movieor play back other video formats. I usually don't work in the perfect world so I have work with what I have. I have worked with MC, SW, ES, and ProE for some time. I hope this helps

[rdamiani]

The newer Intel graphics cards actually aren't too bad with MasterCAM. I've tried the 855s and they seem to work well without having to tweak anything. I suspect that the newer 900-series work equally well, as they seem to use the same driver.

[drachir8]

Originally Posted by rdamiani The newer Intel graphics cards actually aren't too bad with MasterCAM. I've tried the 855s and they seem to work well without having to tweak anything. I suspect that the newer 900-series work equally well, as they seem to use the same driver.

Wow. Thats good to know. I tried it last on a gateway about a year ago. I dont recall what card it had in it but I know I had to play with it a little.

[jkeyser14]

I've got a couple year old dell laptop in my lab right now and it doesn't have any trouble running it. Has less trouble than my desktop's 256md NVIDIA card as a matter of fact.

If I remember, I'll check tomorrow and let you know what card I have in the laptop.

[Firebird0095]

I would recommend that you check the solidworks website, and click the video cards link on the main page. If you can find the card in that list and it passed all of the solidworks tests, then it will work fine for MCAM. I have MCAM 9 on my laptop that is 4 years old and it does not stress my video card at all - it just runs the processor 100% all the time. Supposedly they fixed that in version 10. In my experience Solidworks is harder on the videocard - especially if you want realview. Either way Nvidia rocks - even though they are expensive.

[flmoose55]

Be careful on buying any NVidia card as many have limited buffer. I have had issues in the past with GeForce cards in that when they run out of memory parts in assemblies start dropping out especially during rotation. Like Firebird recommends check the SolidWorks website and see if they list the note regarding limitations. My experience has been that the video card is the one thing that you want to put good money towards yet it seldom happens. I have used Quatro Pro's with decent success. I currently have a ATI FireGL5100 and it has quirks.

[lietuvys]

Originally Posted by flmoose55 Be careful on buying any NVidia card as many have limited buffer. I have had issues in the past with GeForce cards in that when they run out of memory parts in assemblies start dropping out especially during rotation. Like Firebird recommends check the SolidWorks website and see if they list the note regarding limitations. My experience has been that the video card is the one thing that you want to put good money towards yet it seldom happens. I have used Quatro Pro's with decent success. I currently have a ATI FireGL5100 and it has quirks.

I think that is not a video card problem, that's solidworks feature. When fps (frame rate per second) drops down, solidworks simplifies pieces to keep fps high enough. You can even change this in preferences.
Isn't this in your case, flmoose55?

SolidWorks' recommended video cards are expensive. If you don't need very high-end system, I think any newer Geforce card will do quite well. I have tested Geforce4 MX4400, Geforce3 Ti200 and Geforce 6600 GT - and all of them worked fine (last is best and fastest) even with 4x antialiasing turned on.

[hkelsey]

Does anyone know if MC or Solidworks runs OK on the AMD Alathon x2 or the Intel D dual core chips?

[flmoose55]

I am not an IT expert nor do I profess to have alot of computer knowledge. The GeForce cards work fine with parts or small to medium assemblies. Large assemblies became a problem. I will try to describe what happens a little better. When rotating a large assembly with the GeForce card the display would act as if there was an invisible plane where on one side of the plane the assembly would display fine, the other side would display nothing. The IT manager at work explained it to me as a buffer issue with the video card. The assembly probably had 1500 to 2000 parts in it. I believe that there were some other issues with multiple windows of large assemblies open. With medium size assemblies and parts the GeForce card worked fine. I try to find discontinued video cards that tend to be discounted for my home computer. I would recommend looking at 3D Labs cards on MWave. Although I just checked and they appear to have no stock on the lower end cards. This has been my experience Lietuvys. I searched the options and did not see what you were referring too. Maybe you can enlighten me. Thanks

[cadcam]

Tell me what laptops you are looking at. If you want to be fully safe for both softwares go with the Dell M70 as it uses a Quadro Card for the video.

Stay as close to the Nvidia as possable.I do know that X does work to a point with some of the higher ATI cards in say the HP laptops.

I use a HP laptop with a Nvidia chipset for Mastercam and I am the main support for southern Cali mastercam dealer ship.
So I use this for Demos support and trainning.

I also run Solid works on this same box.
Hope this helps