3D Previews/ OpenGL

[presentations]

I received my copy of PartWorks today and I would like to say that I am very happy.


I do have one (small) issue - 3D previews.
I know my graphics card is capable of OpenGL hardware acceleration, yet PartWorks says in the about box - "1.007 (Software OpenGL)". 3D previews are definitely slower than I would like. I've looked and I can't find anywhere to change this. Am I missing something, or is this a limitation of PartWorks, or ?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post as I didn't see a sub-forum specific to PartWorks.

[mark_m]

Walter,
Navigate to the PartWorks\Exec folder, you will see a file named OPENGL32.dll. Rename this file.
(Do not delete it in case you have problems)
If your graphics card driver has installed a version of this file, VCarve should use this, if the graphics driver does not contain this file, the the Operating system copy of this file will be used.
If you have any questions or problems, please email support@vectric.com (mailto:support@vectric.com).
I hope this helps.
Mark.

[presentations]

Mark,

Worked like a charm, thanks.

In the future a preference setting might be easier for most users, or even better yet - detect which to use automatically.

Walter

[mark_m]

Walter,
Glad to hear things are working ok.
We try to support as wide a range of hardware as possible, so we opt for OpenGL emulation as the default mode. At the moment the majority of users of our software, only use quite modest graphics cards.
Cheers,
Mark.

[knight_toolworks]

how fast of a video card do you think you need to run prieview in best quality doing pockets? I would like to leave it in this mode but my cheap video card is way too slow.

[mark_m]

That is a very expansive question Steve, the answer has to be, that it is very subjective.
What one person considers to be "fast enough"...
If you send me a typical project, I can run a time on my laptop, which has a reasonable chipset, and you can make a choice based on that.
Mark.

[knight_toolworks]

Yes I can really see where your coming from. the files is 3 times faster on my home laptop then the one at work. I jsut replaced the work laptop with a scratch and dent dell. thought the video card is even slower in that one I figure a 90 card should speed things up by quite a bit.

[Brian Moran]

The toolpath simulation is more processor bound than graphics bound. The hard work of the simulation is done in software, so a fast graphics card generally makes very little difference to the simulation speed. A fast graphics card is one of the last things I would invest in for PartWorks / VCarve Pro.

For PartWorks / Cut3D a faster graphics card may make some difference to 'twiddling' the model, particularly if you have models with a large number of triangles, however it will make very little difference to the speed of the simulation.

Brian

[Gary Campbell]

Hey Guys..
Is there any way to slow down the tool path simulation? Most happen so fast that I cant even guess anything but final results.
Gary

[Brian Moran]

Hi Gary,

At the moment there is no way to slow down the simulation other than setting the preview quality to 'Best Quality' from the view menu, which will slow it down a bit.

This feature is on our wish list though.

Brian

[knight_toolworks]

here is an interesting little thing. ok my home computer is a hp business laptop. it has a amd turion 64 ship 2.19 g and 1 gig of ram.
my new shop computer I got to run the bot but decided to use it as my main machine has a amd duel core 64 (I think) at 1.9 it is far slower then this laptop. now it was only 239.00 at a dell scratch and dent and it is running vista. but as far as best quality prieview it is as slow as the laptop it replaced. I noticed only one core gets used too.

[fleinbach]

Steve,

Duel core processors only run both cores under 2 conditions. 1. If the software is written to run with duel core. 2. When running multiple applications at the same time.