System Requirements: COMSOL Multiphysics® Version 6.1
Hardware Requirements
The hardware requirements for COMSOL Multiphysics® include:
- A working network card and internet connection for installation
- At least 4 GB of RAM
- 2–20 GB of disk space, depending on your licensed products and installation options
- The following processors:
- An Intel® or AMD® 64-bit processor based on the Intel® 64 or AMD64 architecture with the SSE4 instruction set
(Intel® processors released in 2009 or later and AMD® processors released in 2012 or later satisfy this requirement.) - Apple silicon processors (M1 and later); supported with macOS
- ARMv8 processors; supported with Linux®
- An Intel® or AMD® 64-bit processor based on the Intel® 64 or AMD64 architecture with the SSE4 instruction set
In addition, Adobe Acrobat® Reader is required to view and print the COMSOL documentation in PDF format.
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®.
64-Bit Operating Systems
| Architecture | Windows® | macOS | Linux® |
|---|---|---|---|
Intel® 64 AMD64 |
|
|
|
| ARMv8 (including Apple silicon processors like M1) | Not supported |
|
|
2 Running the Intel® 64 and AMD64 version on Apple silicon with Rosetta 2 is no longer supported.
OS-Specific System Requirements
| Linux® |
|
|---|
1 See FlexNet® License Manager on Linux® below.
Help System on Linux®
In order for the help system to work on Linux® operating systems, the WebKitGTK package needs to be installed. Versions up to 2.32 are supported. Some later versions have stability issues which may or may not affect COMSOL®. The WebKitGTK package is available under different names in different Linux® distributions:
| Linux® Distribution | Package Name |
|---|---|
| Debian® 10 and 11 | libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 |
| Ubuntu® 18.04, 20.04, and 22.04 | libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 |
| Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 7 and CentOS® 7 | webkitgtk4 |
| Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 8, Rocky Linux 8, and Oracle® Linux 8 | webkit2gtk3 |
| Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 9, Rocky Linux 9, and Oracle® Linux 9 | webkit2gtk3 |
| SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop® 15 | libwebkit2gtk-4_0-37 |
| OpenSUSE® Leap 15.3 and 15.4 | libwebkit2gtk-4_0-37 |
FlexNet® License Manager
The system requirements for the license manager are the same as for COMSOL Multiphysics®. COMSOL® 6.1 is not generally compatible with FlexNet® License Manager versions from earlier COMSOL® releases. Thus, when upgrading to COMSOL® 6.1, you need to upgrade the license manager as well. FlexNet® version 11.18.3 is used on all platforms in COMSOL® 6.1. 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 the root:
- For Intel® 64 and AMD64 architectures:
ln -s /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 /lib64/ld-lsb-x86-64.so.3 - For ARMv8:
ln -s /lib64/ld-linux-aarch64.so.1 /lib64/ld-lsb-aarch64.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.
Model Manager
The capability to use a local Model Manager database is included with all licenses except the class kit license. When using a local Model Manager database, it needs to be located on your computer and cannot be placed on a network or cloud drive. Installation and connection to a central Model Manager server is available with a floating network license.
Add-In for Microsoft® PowerPoint® and Microsoft® Word
The COMSOL add-in for PowerPoint® and Word are compatible with these versions: 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021 on the Windows® operating system. PowerPoint® and Word 2010 Starter are not supported. If you are using Microsoft 365, PowerPoint® and Word must be installed on the computer — the add-ins require a version of PowerPoint® and Word 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 |
|
1 Microsoft® HPC Pack for the respective Windows Server version is required.
2 All computers in the cluster must use the same Linux® version and should have similar hardware. It is recommended that Open Fabric Interface (OFI) 1.5.0 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. The libatomic package should be installed on all cluster nodes when using MPICH2.
COMSOL Multiphysics® version 6.1 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(Intel) | macOS (Apple Silicon) | Linux®(Intel® 64 and AMD64) | Linux® (ARMv8) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| External C Interfaces | Microsoft Visual Studio® 2017 | Intel® Parallel Studio XE Composer Edition for C++ macOS 20.4 (also known as Intel® C++ Compiler version 19.1.3.301) with Apple LLVM version 11.0.3 (clang-1103.0.32.62) is officially supported | Apple clang version 13.0.0 (LLVM 12) | Intel® Parallel Studio XE Composer Edition for C++ Linux® 20.4 (also known as Intel® C++ Compiler version 19.1.3.304) with GCC 9.4.0 is officially supported | GCC 12.2.0 |
| Java API | JDK 8 and 11 | JDK 8 and 11 | JDK 8 and 11 | JDK 8 and 11 | JDK 8 and 11 |
COMSOL Multiphysics® is built and tested with the above C/C++ compilers. Please note that later versions of these C/C++ compilers may also be compatible with the external C interfaces. JRE 8 and 11 are supported 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 11 is 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.
Java Environment
COMSOL is shipped with OpenJDK 11.0.13. You can choose an alternative Java 11 version 11.0.9.1 or later during installation.
Graphics System Requirements
COMSOL recommends hardware rendering for performance reasons. Hardware rendering requires drivers that support OpenGL® version 2.1 or later. Windows® operating system users may also use DirectX® version 9.
To use all rendering features available when Optimize for Quality is set in the Graphics preferences, graphics memory of 2 GB or more is recommended.
AMD®
Windows® 11
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W6400 | 22.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W5700 | 22.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W5500 | 22.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 | 22.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 | 22.Q3 |
Windows® 10
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W6800 | 22.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W6600 | 22.Q3 |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro VII | 22.Q3 |
Ubuntu® 22.04
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W6800 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W6600 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W6400 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W5700 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro W5500 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro VII | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
| AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 | AMDGPU (Linux® 5.15.0) |
NVIDIA®
Windows® 11
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| Quadro® RTX A5500 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX A5000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX A4000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX A3000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX A1000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX 6000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX 4000 | 517.40 |
Windows® 10
| Card Model | Driver Version |
|---|---|
| Quadro® RTX A2000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® RTX 3000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® T1000 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® T400 | 517.40 |
| Quadro® T600-R | 517.40 |
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 which 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. Apple and macOS are trademarks 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.