Doug Gower

Good one Mike... I'm just trying to get past 2GB now but I think there is an amp in IronCAD that will do that.

Oops... I meant 3GB switch but I don't know if that would help. It sounds like there is another issue here. - Doug

In a quick test on my XP system I do not see this problem and IronCAD does go away when I close. I have seen certain processes listed more than once but I don't think it is normal for IronCAD. I would ask how much memory you have and if you are using the 4GB switch on this system?

It would also be nice to find all assemblies that are associated with a 3D scene (or part). - Just a thought. Doug

Mike, I think Design Data Manager comes with IronCAD (on disc 2). It's probably the best one... they were working with some IronCAD users. - Doug

Someone at work re-installed XP on my compuker a couple of weeks ago. Funny thing... without asking they installed SP3 using nlite. No major problems & running good so far.

It sounds like IC would still be limited to 128M except for the addition of Hoops and even then 128MB should work alright according to someone at IC. The more memory the better though. I found a few Solidworks 2008 users who tried the FX570 (256MB) and it worked fine. I can't imagine IC would need more than that. Still... I'm tempted to get something better after my last experience. It's really hard to tell what the difference is here when you can't see it for yourself.

Nice... I don't remember being able to do that before!

It's time to find a new video card thanks to ATI and looking at the choices now it looks like the new Nvidia cards with shader model 4.0 and Direct X 10 are about the only choice for future considerations... Quadro FX 570 - entry level Quadro FX 1700 - midrange Quadro FX 3700 - high end Does anyone else use these for IronCAD or have any recommendations? I don't find any reviews except for a couple customer reviews and the FX 1700 does not look great so far. FX 3700 is the only card at PCI-Express 2.0 everything else is 1.1 or something. - Thanks

I think this is what you're talking about - http://www.ironcad.com/explore/solutionpar...surface/mcneel/

This brings up a point I've been wondering about. Does anyone know? Would it make sense to have the the page file, the OS (Win XP Pro in my case), and IronCAD on a seperate drive (or partition) and the critical data on another seperate drive or partition? This makes sense to me, but what would be the best way to do this? I've read that it would help. I think that was here? http://www.magnacad.com/Printables/ICSpecs07.pdf - DG

I've seen low memory errors before, but don't remember what caused them. You might search in the forum for IronCAD performance tips (Mike Twining). There are some good tips in there that might help. I've tried disabling Hyperthreading like Mike suggested on Pentium 3 GHz and noticed multitasking slowed down, but it might help with IronCAD. It sounds like you might need to turn off something else that's running in the background, but I'm not sure and I can't think of anything else right off hand. -DG

The software setting is under Tools (menu)> Options> Rendering (Tab) > Renderer/ Software.

You should use the /3GB switch if you don't already have it turned on. There's more information in the forum on how to do that. I was having a video driver problem related to OpenGL. The CPU usage in the task manager was pegged all the time and I couldn't get anything done. I found out I could get some work done when I turned off OpenGL and used the software setting (v9). Finally when I found out recently they had a new driver, I installed it and the problem went away. You might look at video driver updates but keep track of the driver you are using. Before that I thought I had a problem with memory using only 2GB. Anyway, if you already use the /3GB switch and it doesn't help temporarily to turn off OpenGL here are a couple links you could look at. Maybe some information in there for you? http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791558.aspx http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.aspx?qid=3743 http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.aspx?qid=4251 -DG

John, I don't know what CCleaner is? But if it is what I think you're talking about, I have tons of hard drive space and that wasn't part of the problem. At any rate, thanks for the information. Doug

re: F-Prot Antivirus and IronCAD I wanted to point this out incase anyone else is using F-Prot Antivirus. After struggling with IronCAD bogging down slower and slower over a period of time. My antivirus license finally expired. My 3D models were getting larger and larger but I was having a hard time getting any work done. I could work on my new projects without much problem, but when I went to open up anything older it was a struggle to get any work done at all and I was starting to get worried that if I needed to go back and change something I wouldn't be able to get it done. I thought I had tried turning off antivirus to see if that was a problem, but evidently I must not have shut it off completely. I have the 3GB switch and 2GB of RAM. I have a lot of components in these models so I thought they were just getting too big, but IronCAD support told me otherwise. This computer was built by a company that didn't supply antivirus unless I purchased one from them but I decided instead I was going to buy and install F-Prot myself. It worked good, was inexpensive and we had some other Windows computers around that could use it. I think the cost was $50 for 10 computers. Finally, I had some time to try to figure out the problem and since the antivirus license expired I decided to try out another one. I looked around a little to find something I liked and ended up trying Kaspersky. So far I've only tried the demo, but my problems with IronCAD running slow have almost gone away completely. I would be interested to know what other people use and if they've had any issues. It seems that somehow F-Prot was interfering with IronCAD. Thanks, Doug

Photoshop is not officially supported anymore (on the list of supported apps for 3Dconnextion), but they still offer the plug-in for photoshop. You can find the plug-ins under Download Drivers --> Choose Device --> Operating Systems --> choose Archives instead of OS -->.

I am wondering if anyone has tried blender and could comment on how it compares to Rhino? There is a good comparison with other 3D tools here but Rhino is not included in the list and I don't know much about any of them except that blender uses a lot of hot keys. http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools blender link... http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Home.2.0.html Thanks, Doug

As Mike said One thing to consider - if you add a 3D controller. Will it work with the Mac? I've heard a 3D Connexion works great with Photoshop and I think you could try a free demo, but I don't think it works on the Mac (for photoshop)? It does work with IC though and that might make a case for running only Windows.

One test drawing.icd = 12.7MB Exported .icd to PDF = 200KB Compressed .icd (.zip) = 3.09MB Space saved = approx 75% I was working on a Mastercard ad but with all of my drawings, I ran out of hard disk space. Just kidding Cary... Actually most of my drawings are a lot smaller. I just wanted to point this out because it wasn't that long ago the space would have been a big problem.

I installed PU1 (with everything else shut down). Then a couple days later decided to check the Help\ About\ IronCAD 9 menu and the update didn't show up. So I installed it again the same way and now PU1 shows up in the menu and the COG Display (add in) menu bar also came up. It just seems strange that this happened to me on 2 computers. Hopefully I won't have the problems you are talking about.

Hi Loren, I am just starting to use Design Data Manager (PDM Integrator for IronCAD) and it looks like there will be some good benefits from using it. It seems a little overwhelming at first, but it looks like a good application after I've used it a small amount. I would like to see what some experienced users have to say about it though. It will also cost more if you need support and maintenance and I'm waiting to see how much that will be. If you do decide to install this, don't use the version from the IronCAD Goldpartners disc (came with IronCAD v8 CD). You will find some good information on that disc if you have it, but download the newest trial from their website instead. I just spent a couple hours+ with them upgrading to 2006. go to http://www.designdatamanager.com Doug

Here's a free pdf printer http://www.primopdf.com/

I recently installed the PDM Integrator for IronCAD and I've been loading parts in. I'm now having a problem saving a drawing when the part is already loaded. For some reason a drawing is recognized as a new part and I cannot save the drawing into PDM. I don't understand because I have saved a couple drawings into PDM but now this problem... frustrating

Isn't .NET Framework an IronCAD requirement? I am having trouble updating Windows and getting the new version 2.0 .NET Framework. Does this even matter? I am currently on version 1.1 with the Hotfix.