normally i run small files 40k to 300k with no problem.  today i was mesing around with pocketing a fairly complex logo with a .041 endmill in an 8.5x3 inch 1/4 deep area (in wood)and the toolpath resulted in a 10mb file.  mach seemed to choke on it till i turned off toolpaths in the diagnostics window.   i'm running a 3ghz intel with onboard video.  just curious if the real deal video card will keep mach from gagging on my files.

j9k

j(nine)k

Try turning off the onboard video in Task Manager, and see if Mach 3 manages any better then. It will give you some idea.

With 3 Ghz of memory (which is what I assume you are saying) then 10 Mbyte should be no problem. If it is a complex file, it may be just that Mach3 was spending too much time worrying about the job instead of just getting on with it.

10MB files are a pain in the butt    There are users running files much bigge then that and they have to turn off the toolpath it is just to much for the poor computer to do

A new video card would help but I have no idea how much...

Thanks
Brian

thanks for the reply!!!

maybe you could have mach only draw the first and last thousand lines and one line out of five hundred inbetween or create a bitmap file based on the density of toolpaths in the z axis on the xy plane.  i  anyway thanks for an answer and thanks for the software.

j9k

oh and thanks for not writing crashy software.  mach hasn't crashed once yet.

There are ways that we could optimize the tool path BUT they all result in the same problem.... That the tool path no longer shows what the true path will look like....
I will look into the display code after the end of the year...

Thanks
Brian