Mastercam System Requirements

See the table below for minimum and recommended system configurations for Mastercam. These recommendations are based on systems we have in use at CNC Software for testing and evaluation purposes. Our recommendation is to get as much power (processor, video card, and memory) for your systems as you can afford.

	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 64-bit Professional	Windows 10 64-bit Professional
Processor	Intel® or AMD 64-bit processor, 2.4GHz or faster	Intel I7 or Xeon® E3, 3.2GHz or faster
Memory	8 GB	32 GB
Video	OpenGL 3.2 support with 1 GB memory. No onboard graphics	NVIDIA Quadro® or AMD Radeon® Pro graphics card with 4 GB (or higher) dedicated memory
Monitor	1920 * 1080 resolution	1920 * 1080 resolution, dual monitors
Storage	Hard drive with at least 20GB free USB and/or DVD drive (depending on installation media and licensing method)	Solid State Drive (SSD) with at least 20GB free
3D Mouse		3DConnexion 3D mouse

Connection to Internet and email is recommended for installation, support, and updates.

Operating Systems

CNC Software continues to review the operating system (OS) requirements for Mastercam with a goal of providing the best possible user experience for our customers.

We recommend using Windows 10 64-bit Professional editions. While Mastercam may run on other Windows editions (such as Home Edition) or virtual environments (such as Parallels for Mac), it has not been tested on these configurations and is therefore not supported.

Mastercam X7 MU2 was the last release to support Windows 7 32-bit OS.

Processor

The processor speed will impact how fast the software will calculate and complete tasks. With each release, more and more aspects of Mastercam are becoming multi-core processor aware. Toolpath calculation and Simulation will generally run faster with a multi-core processor. We typically see a 50% reduction in toolpath calculation time with the latest Intel i7 or Xeon processors.

Memory

When Mastercam uses all available RAM it switches to using virtual memory space, which is stored on the hard drive, and will dramatically slow the system down. We recommend a minimum of 8GB memory. For large toolpath generation and simulation we recommend 32 GB of RAM.

Video

When purchasing a new computer for Mastercam, one of the most important areas is the video card.

We recommend a NVIDIA Quadro or AMD Radeon® Pro card with 4 GB or more of memory. Other graphics cards can be used, but they must offer full OpenGL 3.2 support. We have seen some issues using AMD/ATI Radeon® RX series and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards.

We do not recommend or support the use of onboard graphics found with some PC configurations. These do not generally have the capability to drive graphics intensive applications such as Mastercam.

Make sure you are using up-to-date drivers from your card manufacturer. We often see issues that are resolved with updated video drivers. The driver version can have a great impact on how the card performs.

The latest drivers for NVIDIA and ATI/AMD can be found at the online links. We recommend using the automatic detect feature to detect which video card is installed. Registered Mastercam customers can find more information on configuring the graphics card in the Mastercam knowledge base article.

Monitor

The majority of our internal systems utilize dual monitors and we find this to be more productive. A second monitor allows applications such as Mastercam Simulator, Code Expert, Tool Manager and other applications to run on the secondary monitor while Mastercam utilizes the primary monitor.

The minimum recommended resolution for the primary display is 1920 * 1080 resolution typical of widescreen monitors available today. Mastercam will run on lower resolution screens but beware of potential sizing issues with larger dialog boxes and panels which may be awkward to work with. Lower resolution monitors may work fine as a second monitor in a dual screen setup.

Mastercam will run on large format displays, including 4K monitors and high-DPI devices however, we do some display issues with these configurations.

Storage

We have found that one of the best computer upgrades is to invest in a Solid State Drive (SSD). These drives are now priced at a point which makes them a good investment. Many of our test systems employ a smaller primary SSD for the OS and installed applications with a second large capacity conventional drive for data.

3D Mouse

A 3D mouse improves the way you interact with your 3D application. It is designed to be used by your non-dominant hand in tandem with a standard mouse for a balanced and cooperative work style. You gently manipulate the 3D mouse's controller cap to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate 3D content while your standard mouse is free to select menu items or parts of the model. Additional technical and purchase information can be found on the 3Dconnexionwebsite.

Anti-Virus Software

Most computers today have some kind of anti-virus software to protect from unwanted malware. In some cases, these have been found to interfere with applications such as Mastercam which are running on the computer. CNC Software does not recommend specific anti-virus products, but if you see unexpected issues, it may be a conflict with anti-virus software. Try temporarily disabling the anti-virus software or setting an exception for Mastercam.