Video Card
64 MB (or more) card with hardware 3D acceleration and solid OpenGL support
This item is the cause of most critical problems a user can encounter using Mastercam. Try to work out an understanding with your hardware supplier that allows you to switch video cards if problems occur. This is especially true for users who are going to try the very expensive solutions from 3dlabs, Intergraph, and Accel.
Most video cards based on nVIDIA chipsets perform well with Mastercam. nVIDIA's Quadro4 XGL or Quadro FX chipsets are recommended when choosing cards aimed at professional workstation use, but they are much more expensive than their commercial counterparts; the GeForce series. However, the GeForce line cannot match the Quadro's strength in areas such as antialiasing, OpenGL logic operations, region/plane clipping and memory management. The GeForce2Ti/GTS/Pro, GeForce3 Ti, GeForce4 Ti and GeForce FX 5600/5900 chipsets from consumer video cards perform excellent and are a cost-effective solution. The MX iteration of GeForce cards is a low-end commercial chipset and is not recommended for advanced 3D applications such as Mastercam. The GeForce FX 5200, while a member of the FX series, is equivalent to those of the MX series and should also avoided. It should be noted that nVIDIA does not manufacture video cards; only chipsets. Companies that are licensed to manufacture video cards containing nVIDIA's GeForce and Quadro chipsets for desktop computers include Asus, BFG, eVGA, Gainward, Leadtek, MSI and PNY.
ATI's commercial line of cards which include the Radeon, Rage, All In Wonder, and Xpert series are not recommended. As it stands, ATI is notorious for having weak OpenGL implementations in its commercial drivers which can result in poor performance and instability in OpenGL-based applications such as Mastercam. ATI's workstation line of cards, FireGL, do not appear to be plagued by OpenGL issues.
In general, Mastercam's performance will improve on video cards with faster Graphics Processing Units (GPU). An nVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 (32 MB) is faster than an ATI Radeon 7000 (64 MB).
Chris' Horsepower Pick
256MB nVIDIA Quadro FX 3000
Chris' Wallet-Friendly Pick
128MB nVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (8X AGP)