Hardware Software Requirements

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680

Hardware

Our current suggestions for hardware to run EDGE:

• Dual-core 1.8 GHz or better CPU

• = 2 GB of RAM (512 MB required)

• NVIDIA based graphics card (ATI cards may work with versions > 2.2).
  • Cards known to work well (see note below about Quadro cards):
    • GTX 1080 Ti, 1080, 1070, 980 Ti, 980, and 970 series
• or, a NVIDIA based notebook chipset (we have limited experience here, so try to test before you buy!)
  • 1080, 980, 980M, 970M, or 880M

Currently, in order of highest preference, we are recommending the following cards:

1. GTX 1080 Ti
2. GTX 1080
3. GTX 1070
4. GTX 980 Ti
5. GTX 980
6. GTX 970
7. GTX 780
8. GTX 680
9. GTX 760
10. GTX 580
11. GTX 480
12. GTX 460
13. GTX 280 or GTX 285

frankie August 21, 2008, at 01:37 PM: CPU clock speed also has a large impact on EDGE framerates, so once you have a high-end card, focus your money on a high-end processor and good power supply. —FG

Here is a comparison of some of the specs on desktop cards. Memory amount and memory bandwidth are large factors due to all of the planet textures that EDGE uses.

| Model | Memory (MB) | Fill Rate (billion/sec) | Processors | Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) | Memory Interface (bits) | || | GTX 1080 Ti | 11264 | 356 | 3584 | 484 | 352 | | GTX Titan X | 12228 | 192 | 3072 | 336.5 | 384 | | GTX 980 Ti | 6144 | 176 | 2816 | 336.5 | 384 | | GTX Titan | 6144 | 187.5 | 2688 | 288.4 | 384 | | GTX 1080 | 8192 | 277.3 | 2560 | 320 | 256 | | GTX 780 | 3072 | 165.7 | 2304 | 288.4 | 384 | | GTX 980 | 4096 | 144 | 2048 | 224.0 | 256 | | GTX 680 | 2048 | 128.8 | 1536 | 192.2 | 256 | | GTX 580 | 1536 | 49.4 | 512 | 192.4 | 384 | | GTX 480 | 1536 | 42 | 480 | 177.4 | 384 | | GTX 280 | 1024 | 48.2 | 240 | 141.7 | 512 | | GTX 285 | 1024 | 51.8 | 240 | 159.0 | 512 | | GTX 260 | 896 | 36.9 | 192 | 111.9 | 448 | | 8800 GTX | 768 | 36.8 | 128 | 86.4 | 384 | | 9800 GTX | 512 | 43.2 | 128 | 70.4 | 256 | | 8800 Ultra | 768 | 39.2 | 128 | 103.7 | 384 | | 8800 GT | 512 | 33.6 | 112 | 57.6 | 256 | | 8800 GTS | 640 | 24 | 96 | 64 | 320 | | Last Updated July 14, 2008, at 05:13 PM |

Quadro Cards

We have had many people look at us in disbelief when we tell them that a $400 gaming card will blow away their $4000 Quadro card that they bought. Over and over, people continue to look at the professional line of cards assuming that they will get better EDGE performance with these cards.

Since we work in an enterprise environment, people often ask if the professional workstation lines of cards are compatible with the EDGE. The answer to this is mixed. While some quadro cards do have linux drivers that will function and provide the GL extensions required, they often lag in performance to the consumer gaming cards. The reason for this is two fold: one is that the workstation cards are more optmized for CAD and DCC, meaning very large memory amounts and high render quality whereas the consumer cards focus more on rendering speeds sacrificing accuracy and rendering quality where needed. The second is because our product is specifically developed and tested on the consumer gaming cards, leading to better speed and support.

Luckily, the consumer cards are orders of magnitude cheaper than their quadro counterparts due to the economies of the gaming market. This leads to cost savings and more availability (consumer graphics card can be bought at any local electronics store).

So, BEWARE. You will get the best EDGE performance with the cards we suggest above!

frankie December 20, 2007, at 04:01 PM: See this recent case study for more information on what to look for when buying a graphics card to use with EDGE.

frankie December 21, 2007, at 09:30 AM: Avoid "GS" versions of these NVIDIA cards that are made to lower the cost, unless you are shopping for value. You will get what you pay for, no matter what. The GS cards can still be good, but make sure you do your research.

Note: We have not seen much improvement using SLI. We suggest avoiding the very high cost of SLI motherboards and cards and instead redirecting money to the graphics card, memory, and CPU. If you have a different experience, please document it somewhere on the website! —frankie

Software

Operating system

The binaries currently released are compiled for Fedora Core 3. However, we have seen compatibility with the following linux operating systems:

• Fedora Core 3,4,5,6
• Fedora 7,8,etc.
• Ubuntu 14.04
• Ubuntu 12.04
• Ubuntu 12.10
• Centos 4.x
• Centos 5.x
• Scientific Linux 6.x
• Others…

Note: EDGE currently runs 32 bit binaries. There should be no issues running the 32 bit EDGE binaries on 64 bit platform. A 64 bit comm library is also available for linking into 64 bit simulations.

NVIDIA driver

A NVIDIA driver is required. So far, only the drivers distributed from NVIDIA are supported. When in doubt, try the latest driver from the NVIDIA website. Some of the latest features such as the atmosphere require a more recent driver.

To find out what nvidia driver you are using in linux, use the following command:

cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version

Download linux NVIDIA drivers on NVIDIA’s unix driver download page

Dream system

If we were about to build a new hot-shot graphics machine, here is what we would build:

• Dream Desktop

  • Core i7 7700k or better
  • NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti series graphics card
  • 16 GB of fastest available quad channel DDR4 RAM or higher
  • Scientific Linux 6 with latest NVIDIA driver version

• Dream notebook (don't expect this to be anywhere as fast as the dream desktop)

  • Core i7 6700k processor or better
  • NVIDIA GTX 1080 series graphics chipset
  • 16 GB quad channel DDR4 RAM as possible
  • Scientific Linux 6 with latest NVIDIA driver version

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