System Requirements - 5.1 COMSOL Multiphysics

These requirements are common to all platforms
  • A working network card and internet connection is recommended during installation.
  • At least 1 GB memory, but 4 GB per processor core or more is recommended.
  • 1-5 GB of disk space, depending on your licensed products and installation options.
  • Adobe Acrobat® Reader 9.0 or later to view and print the COMSOL® documentation in PDF format.

For further recommendations concerning hardware, please see our knowledgebase 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, the Design Module, and the LiveLink™ product suite.

Windows® Mac OS X Linux®
32-bit Operating Systems

Windows® 8.1
Windows® 8
Windows® 7
Windows Server® 2008
Windows Vista®

- -
64-bit Operating Systems Windows® 10
Windows® 8.1
Windows® 8
Windows® 7
Windows Server® 2012 R2
Windows Server® 2012
Windows Server® 2008 R2
Windows Server® 2008
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2
Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Vista®
Mac OS X 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and 10.112

Debian® 5, 6, 7 and 8
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 51, 6 and 7
Ubuntu® 12.04 LTS and 14.04 LTS
OpenSUSE® 13.2

1 Only supported for server, batch, and cluster operation.

2 Requires that you apply COMSOL 5.1 Hotfix for El Capitan (OS X 10.11).

OS Specific System Requirements

Linux®

GNU C Library version 2.8 or later1
Linux® kernel 2.6.18 or later
Intel® Pentium® IV or AMD Athlon® XP processor or later
FlexNet® requires Linux Standard Base (LSB).

1If you have an older version of libstdc++ than 6.0.9 you may need to start comsol with the option -forcegcc

Help System

The following browsers are not supported when the Help mode is set to Browser

  • Google Chrome
  • Microsoft Edge

Help system on Linux

In order for the help system to work on Linux, the following packages need to be installed:

  • Debian and Ubuntu: libwebkitgtk-1.0-0
  • RHEL: webkitgtk (not included in RHEL7 but available through EPEL).
  • openSuSE: libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 or libwebkit-1_0-2 depending on version.

If these requirements are not met, COMSOL crashes when accessing the help system.

FLEXnet License Manager

The system requirements for the license manager are the same as for COMSOL Multiphysics. FLEXnet version 11.12 is used on all platforms. The version of lmgrd must be the same or higher than the FLEXnet version used by COMSOL.

FlexNet License Manager on Linux

Linux Standard Base (LSB) is now required for Linux on the license server computer.

Distribution Required Packages
Debian lsb-core
Ubuntu lsb-core
RedHat redhat-lsb
SUSE lsb

Application Builder

The Application Builder is supported in the Windows® operating system.

Parallel System Requirements *

Windows® Mac OS X Linux®
Shared-memory Parallelism All supported versions of Windows® All supported versions of Mac OS X All supported Linux® Distributions
Distributed-memory Parallelism

Windows Server® 2012 R2
Windows Server® 2012
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2
Windows HPC Server 2008

Not Supported

Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 5 and 6
Debian® 6
Ubuntu® 12.04

All computers in the cluster must use the same Linux® version and should have similar hardware. It is recommended that OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) 1.4 or higher is installed. If you are using an 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.

* COMSOL is a proud member of the Intel® Cluster Ready program and certifies COMSOL Multiphysics with every new version. View Certificate. The certification process ensures that COMSOL Multiphysics will seamlessly work for parallel processing and cluster modeling on any hardware that has also been certified as being Intel Cluster Ready.

Intel Cluster Ready
Intel, Intel Cluster Ready and the Intel Cluster Ready text treatment are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

Officially Supported Compilers

Windows® Mac OS X Linux®
External Function C Visual Studio® 2010 Intel® Composer XE 2013.3 (also known as Intel® Compiler version 13.0.2) with GCC 4.2.1 is officially supported Intel® Composer XE 2013.4 (also known as Intel® Compiler version 13.1.2) with GCC 4.2.1 is officially supported
Java® API JDK 1.6 or 1.7 JDK 1.6 or 1.7 JDK 1.6 or 1.7

Graphics System Requirements

COMSOL® recommends hardware rendering for performance reasons. Hardware rendering requires drivers that support OpenGL® version 1.4. Windows® 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® 2.0. Software rendering also supports 16-bit color graphics. For performance reasons, we recommend that the graphics card has at least 512 MB memory.

  Card Model Operating System Driver Version
Windows® FirePro™ W7000 Windows Server® 2012 14.301.1019
FirePro™ W5100 Windows® 8.1 14.301.1019
FirePro™ V7750 Windows Server® 2008 8.911.3.4000
Quadro™ 600 Windows® 7 9.18.13.4752
Quadro™ FX 3800 Windows Server® 2008 R2 9.18.13.2000
Quadro™ FX 580 Windows Server® 2012 9.18.13.4052
Quadro™ K2000 Windows Vista® 9.18.13.4752
Quadro™ K4000 Windows® 7 9.18.13.4752
Quadro™ K5000 Windows® 8 9.18.13.4752
Quadro™ K600 Windows® 8.1 9.18.13.4752
Linux® * FirePro™ V5900 Ubuntu® 12.04 LTS 14.301.1019
FirePro™ W5000 Debian® 7.0 14.301.1019
FirePro™ W8000 Debian® 6.0 14.301.1019
NVS™ 510 Ubuntu® 14.04 LTS 9.18.13.4647
Quadro™ FX 1800 Debian® 6.0 195.36.31
Quadro™ K600 Debian® 7.0 9.18.13.4647
QuadroT™ K600 Debian® 8.0 9.18.13.4659

The graphics cards listed above have been rigorously tested for compatibility with COMSOL Multiphysics®. 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 you graphics card vendor, such as NVIDIA or AMD, 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.