EarthVision 8.0 Hardware Recommendations

Dynamic Graphics recommends the following System Specs for running EarthVision. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact Dynamic Graphics Technical Support or your local Dynamic Graphics representative.

This page serves only as a recommendation.

Hardware Summary

Graphics Card

nVidia Quadro FX (512MB +)
A OpenGL capable graphics card with dedicated memory is required.
In addition, we recommend the graphics card have at least 512M of memory onboard.
Some large monitors (30-inch or greater) require a dual-link DVI capable connector.
DGI tests and recommends graphics cards from the nVidia Quadro FX series for use with its software.

CPU

The time it takes to any type of calculation work on a model is partially dependent on the processor speed of your CPU.
While most of DGI′s software does not currently take advantage of multiple CPUs⁄Cores, their presence will allow you run more software simultaneously without impacting performance.
CPUs meant for lower power solutions (Ultra-Low Voltage [ULV] or Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage [CULV]) are not recommended at this time as they are optimized for lower power consumption rather than performance.

Memory

4GB memory minimum (more under 64-bit Linux)
For 32-bit systems, 4G is recommended. This is the maximum amount of memory supported on 32-bit Windows XP Professional. However, depending on your BIOS and operating system settings, you may only see 3G or 3.5G available.

Hard Drive

Having local access to your data will significantly reduce its load time. If your data is local, then you may benefit by using hard drives with a faster rotation speed (10K rpm, 15K rpm) than the more commonly used 7200 rpm drives.
We do not recommend drives with a speed slower than 7200 rpm.
Hard drive space required for DGI software Software Hard Drive Space

CoViz 4D 1G
EarthVision 2G
WellArchitect 1G ¹

¹ not including database software and databases

Software: Linux versus Windows

The graphics are slightly better under Windows and the calculations are slightly faster under Linux. However, the biggest factor in choosing between Windows and Linux is whether a client will want⁄need 64-bit capability any time soon.

EV8 under Linux will have some 64-bit applications and we hope to provide a full 64-bit Linux version in the near term. But it doesn′t look like we′ll have a 64-bit version under Windows for a while.

Linux: We currently recommend RHEL 4, update 6 (64-bit).

Windows: Windows XP (although we do have a number of installations under Windows XP64)