Hardware Requirements

The minimum hardware configurations required

by Discovery Studio and the operating systems on
which Discovery Studio is supported. In general,
the better the hardware configuration of your
computer, the better your experience with
Discovery Studio will be.
To achieve a more satisfying experience with
Discovery Studio, particularly in terms of the client
software, it is highly recommended that your
system be substantially better than the minimum
requirements specified in the following sections.
This is particularly true if running server software
locally on the same system as the client software.
Attention to the following areas can make a significant
improvement to your overall user experience and enjoyment
of the software:
• Memory - the more RAM your computer has, the better.
• CPU speed - the faster, the better.
• A high quality OpenGL graphics card can make a
significant difference to the graphics performance.
• The higher the display resolution, the more flexibility you
have in displaying and managing document and dialog
windows.
• Mouse - although not absolutely necessary, a three-button
mouse or a two-button mouse with a wheel is strongly
recommended. Such a mouse facilitates the manipulation
of many of the views used in Discovery Studio.
• For example, a PC with 512 MB RAM, a CPU speed of 2
GHz and a workstation-class OpenGL graphics card
should give good performance.
• PC hardware capabilities are currently advancing so
rapidly that a new commodity desktop PC would have
significantly higher specifications than these.
 Windows client system
requirements
• Hardware minimum
• Ensure that the system onto which you install
Discovery Studio meets these minimum
requirements:
• 32-bit Intel® Pentium® 4 or compatible
processor running at 2 GHz or greater
• 512 MB RAM
• Graphics card: NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 1100,
FX1400, FX540 or ATI® FireGL™ V3200, V5100
• Disk space: 300 MB for client components
• A DVD-ROM drive
 Operating systems

• The client is supported on

workstations running:
• Windows® 2000 Professional, SP4
Rollup 1
• ®
Windows  XP Professional, SP1
and SP2
 Additional software required
• Graphics drivers - Discovery Studio is
optimized to provide hardware-accelerated
graphics with supported NVIDIA and ATI
hardware when certified drivers are installed.
For example, on Windows, Accelrys
recommends version 81.67 or higher for use
on NVIDIA Quadro systems. 3D stereo
support is also available with hardware that
provides quad-buffered OpenGL stereo
capabilities.
 Windows server system
requirements
• Hardware minimum
• Ensure that the system onto which you install
the Discovery Studio server meets these
minimum requirements:
• 32-bit Intel® Pentium® 4 or compatible
processor running at 2 GHz or greater
• 512 MB RAM
• Disk space: 1 GB for Pipeline Pilot plus 450
MB for server components
• A DVD-ROM drive
 Operating system

• The server is supported on

workstations running:
• Windows® 2000 Professional or
Server Editions, SP4 Rollup 1
• ®
Windows  XP Professional, SP1
and SP2
• Windows® 2003 Server, SP1
 Linux client system requirements

• Hardware minimum
• Ensure that the system onto which you install
the Discovery Studio client meets these
minimum requirements:
• 32-bit Intel® Pentium® 4 or compatible
processor running at 2 GHz or greater
• 512 MB RAM
• Graphics card: NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 1100,
FX1400, FX540 or ATI FireGL™ V3200, V5100
• Disk space: 350 MB for client components
• A DVD-ROM drive
 Operating system

• The client is supported on workstations

running:
• Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS 3.0,
updates 4-7
• Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS 4.0, base
and updates 1-3
 Additional software required
• GNOME Desktop - Discovery Studio optimized for the
GNOME Desktop. We recommend that this software is
installed and configured. It should be available on your
Linux distribution media.
• System libraries - On Red Enterprise Linux WS 4.0, the
Standard C++ libraries for backwards compatibility
(compat-libstdc++-33) are required for correct operation of
the Discovery Studio client. These are typically provided in
a default installation of the operating system.
• Graphics Drivers - Discovery Studio is optimized to provide
hardware-accelerated graphics with supported NVIDIA and
ATI hardware when certified drivers are installed. For
example, on Linux, Accelrys recommends version 1.0-8174
or higher for use on NVIDIA Quadro systems. 3D stereo
support is also available with hardware that provides quad-
buffered OpenGL stereo capabilities.
 Linux server system requirements
• Hardware requirements
• Ensure that the system onto which you install
Discovery Studio meets these minimum
requirements:
• 32-bit Intel-compatible processor running at 2
GHz or greater
• 512 MB RAM
• Disk space: 2.5 GB for Pipeline Pilot server
plus components
• A DVD-ROM drive
 Operating system

• The server is supported on workstations

running:
• Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS 3.0,
updates 4-7
• Red Hat® Enterprise Linux WS 4.0, base
and update 1-3
 Additional software required
• System libraries - On Red Hat® Enterprise
Linux 4.0, the Standard C++ libraries for
backwards compatibility (compat-
libstdc++-33) are required for correct
operation of the Discovery Studio server.
These are typically provided in a default
installation of the operating system.
• MPICH - Discovery Studio includes a version
of CHARMm that runs on systems with
multiple processors. To use this version,
MPICH must be installed and configured.