In my analysis of the different print times, I first noticed that Bambu Studio defaults to using G2/G3 arc movements, while Snapmaker Orca, by default, breaks curves exclusively into G1 segments.
Although Snapmaker Orca does offer the option “Print as Arc”, which generates G2/G3 movements, this option is disabled by default. After enabling it, I observed a noticeable time advantage, yet the print time still does not approach that of Bambu Studio.
I therefore investigated further, as reproducible differences in print times occurred between Bambu Studio and Snapmaker Orca, despite identical speeds and comparable print parameters. The difference does not appear random but rather stems from the way G-code is generated.
Notably, the affected part consists almost entirely of continuous radii. For such geometries, print time depends less on the set speed and more on how the slicer breaks these radii into motion segments.
When comparing the generated G-code, I observed that the G-code produced by Bambu Studio contains significantly fewer lines (≈ 370,000 lines), while the G-code generated by Snapmaker Orca for the same part comprises over 1,000,000 lines.
This significantly increased number of segments forces the motion planner to constantly re-accelerate and decelerate on highly segmented paths, substantially reducing the effective average speed—despite identical F-values.
As a control test, I constructed the same profile using only straight segments, without any radii. In this case, the print times of Bambu Studio and Snapmaker Orca were very close, sometimes nearly identical.
I also suspect that G2/G3 arcs are internally broken down into G1 segments by Klipper, since even after enabling the “Print as Arc” option, although a clear time gain is measurable, the segment count and print time remain significantly higher than Bambu Studio’s level. This suggests that the advantage arises less from continuous arcs and more from a more favorable, planner-friendly segmentation within the firmware.
I would be interested to know whether others have made similar observations or can provide deeper insights into Klipper’s behavior when G2/G3 commands are enabled.
