System Requirements: COMSOL Multiphysics® Version 5.6
These requirements are common to all platforms:
- A working network card and internet connection are recommended during installation
- At least 4 GB of RAM is recommended
- 2–13 GB of disk space, depending on your licensed products and installation options
- Adobe Acrobat® Reader to view and print the COMSOL documentation in PDF format
- An Intel® or AMD® 64-bit processor based on the Intel® 64 or AMD64 architecture with the SSE4 instruction set. Intel® processors released 2009 or later and AMD® processors released 2012 or later satisfy this requirement.
For further recommendations concerning hardware, please see our Knowledge Base entry.
Operating System Requirements
In addition to the operating system requirements listed below, see the Interfacing Product Suite Requirements for specific requirements for the CAD Import Module, Design Module, and the LiveLink™ products. The system requirements for COMSOL Compiler™ are identical to those for COMSOL Multiphysics®.
| Windows® | macOS | Linux® | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 64-Bit Operating Systems |
|
macOS 10.13, 10.14, 10.15, and 11.0 |
|
OS-Specific System Requirements
| Linux® |
|
|---|
1See FlexNet® License Manager on Linux® below.
Help System on Linux®
In order for the help system to work on Linux® operating systems, the following package needs to be installed:
| Operating System | Package Name |
|---|---|
| Debian® 9 and 10 | libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 |
| Ubuntu® 18.04, and 20.04 | libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 |
| Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 7 and CentOS® 7 | webkitgtk4 |
| Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 8, CentOS® 8, and Oracle® Linux 8 | webkit2gtk3 |
| SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop® 15 SP2 | libwebkit2gtk-4_0-37 |
| OpenSUSE® Leap 15.1 and 15.2 | libwebkit2gtk-4_0-37 |
FlexNet® License Manager
The system requirements for the license manager are the same as for COMSOL Multiphysics®. In addition to the Linux® system requirements, the license manager supports Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 6, SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop® 11.4, and Debian® 6 and later. FlexNet® version 11.16.2.1 is used on all platforms. The version of lmgrd must be the same or higher than the FlexNet® version used by the COMSOL® software.
FlexNet® License Manager on Linux®
Linux Standard Base (LSB™) is required for Linux® on the license server computer.
If the LSB™ core package is missing from the distribution repository, manually create a symbolic link as root:
ln -s /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 /lib64/ld-lsb-x86-64.so.3
| Distribution | Required Packages |
|---|---|
| Debian® | lsb-core |
| Ubuntu® | lsb-core |
| Red Hat® | redhat-lsb |
| SUSE® | lsb |
Application Builder
The Application Builder is supported in the Windows® operating system.
Add-In for Microsoft® PowerPoint®
The COMSOL add-in for PowerPoint® is compatible with PowerPoint® 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019 on the Windows® operating system. PowerPoint® 2010 Starter is not supported. If you are using Office 365, PowerPoint® must be installed on the computer — the add-in requires a version of PowerPoint® that supports VSTO add-ins.
Parallel System Requirements
| Windows® | macOS | Linux® | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared-Memory Parallelism | All supported versions of Windows® | All supported versions of macOS | All supported Linux® distributions |
| Distributed-Memory Parallelism |
|
Not supported |
All computers in the cluster must use the same Linux® version and should have similar hardware. It is recommended that OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) 1.5.4.1 or higher is installed. If you are using RDMA-capable network fabrics, a DAPL 1.2 or later version-compliant driver or library is required. The software is usually provided with your hardware. |
1Windows HPC Pack for the respective Windows Server version is required.
COMSOL Multiphysics® version 5.6 has been validated on systems compatible with the Intel HPC Platform Specification and thus will be compatible with Intel® Select Solutions for Simulation and Modeling.
For information on how you can run COMSOL Multiphysics® and COMSOL Server™ in the cloud, please view this page.
Officially Supported Compilers
COMSOL Multiphysics® provides external C interfaces for external functions, external materials, and external C libraries in the Application Builder.
| Windows® | macOS | Linux® | |
|---|---|---|---|
| External C Interfaces | Microsoft Visual Studio® 2017 | Intel® Parallel Studio XE Composer Edition for C++ macOS 18.5 (also known as Intel® C++ Compiler version 18.0.6) with Apple LLVM version 9.1.0 (clang-902.0.39.2) is officially supported | Intel® Parallel Studio XE Composer Edition for C++ Linux® 18.4 (also known as Intel® C++ Compiler version 18.0.5) with GCC 6.5.0 is officially supported |
| Java® API | JDK 1.7 and 1.8 | JDK 1.7 or 1.8 | JDK 1.7 and 1.8 |
COMSOL Multiphysics® is built and tested with the above C/C++ compilers. Please note that later versions of those C/C++ compilers may also be compatible with the external C interfaces. When using the COMSOL API for use with Java® API in client/server mode with the jar files listed in <installation dir>/bin/comsolclientpath.txt, JRE 1.7 and JRE 1.8 are supported. When using the COMSOL API for use with Java® API in standalone mode with the jar files listed in <installation dir>/bin/comsolpath.txt, JRE 1.8 is supported.
Graphics System Requirements
COMSOL recommends hardware rendering for performance reasons. Hardware rendering requires drivers that support OpenGL® version 2.0. Windows® operating system users may also use DirectX® version 9 on the local console. Hardware rendering requires at least 24-bit color graphics.
The Optimize for Quality setting in the Graphics preferences requires OpenGL® 2.1. Software rendering also supports 16-bit color graphics. For performance reasons, we recommend that the graphics card has at least 512 MB memory.
AMD®
Windows® 10
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Radeon™ Pro VII | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 5100 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 4100 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 3200 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 3100 | 20.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 2100 | 20.Q3 |
Ubuntu® 20.04
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 5100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 4100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 3200 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 2100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
Ubuntu® 18.04
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 3100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.4) |
NVIDIA®
Windows® 10
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| Quadro® RTX 3000 | 452.06 |
| Quadro® T1000 | 452.06 |
| Quadro® P4000 | 452.06 |
| Quadro® P3200 | 452.06 |
| Quadro® P2000 | 452.06 |
| Quadro® P1000 | 452.06 |
| Quadro® P600 | 452.06 |
Windows® 7
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| Quadro® P400 | 452.06 |
The graphics cards listed above have been rigorously tested for compatibility with the COMSOL Multiphysics® software. Please note, however, that other AMD® or NVIDIA® graphics cards may also be compatible with COMSOL Multiphysics®. Graphics cards that belong to the same model series as one of the cards listed above are more likely to be compatible with COMSOL Multiphysics®.
For hardware acceleration on Linux®, use proprietary drivers from your graphics card vendor, such as NVIDIA®; otherwise, use COMSOL® software rendering. The Nouveau video driver is only supported for software rendering.
Note: This information is provided for your benefit but should not be used as a substitute for your own investigation of the system requirements that may be appropriate for your use of COMSOL® software or other software, given your particular circumstances. Systems and hardware change regularly, which may impact any determination of what system requirements are appropriate for you.
Adobe and Acrobat are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. AMD, AMD Athlon, FirePro, and Radeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Debian is a registered trademark of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. in the United States. FlexNet is a registered trademark of Flexera Software LLC. NVIDIA and NVIDIA Quadro is a registered trademark of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Intel and Pentium are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. Ubuntu is a registered trademark of Canonical Ltd. OpenGL is a trademark or registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. OpenSUSE and SUSE are registered trademarks of SUSE LLC. Linux, Linux Standard Base, and LSB are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. macOS is a trademark of Apple Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft, DirectX, PowerPoint, Visual Studio, Windows, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. COMSOL AB and its subsidiaries and products are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or supported by these trademark owners.