• Which version of Linux is supported?

    • IA32
      Version Built on Supported
      2011.1 RHEL 4.5 RHEL 4.5
      2010 RHEL 4.5 RHEL 4.5
      2008.0.0 RHEL 4.3 RHEL4.3, serial on RedHat 9
      2007.0.0 RedHat 9 RH 3, RH 4, RH 9, SuSE 9, SuSE 9.1, Fedora Core 2
      2006.0 RedHat 9 RH 3, RH 4, RH 9, SuSE 9, SuSE 9.1, Fedora Core 2
      2005.5 RedHat 9 RH 3, RH 4, RH 9, SuSE 9, SuSE 9.1, Fedora Core 2
      2005 MSC.Linux RH 7, RH 9, RH AS 3, SuSE 9.1, MSC.Linux, Fedora Core 2
      2004 MSC.Linux RH 7, RH 9, SuSE 8.1, MSC.Linux, Mandrake
      2001 MSC.Linux RedHat 7, RedHat 9, MSC.Linux, Caldera, Debian, Slackware
      70.7 RedHat 5 RedHat 5, RedHat 7, RedHat 9, MSC.Linux

    • x8664
      Version Built on Supported
      2011.1 RHEL 4.5 RHEL 4.5+, RHEL 5, SuSE 10
      2010 RHEL 4.5 RHEL 4.5+, RHEL 5, SuSE 10
      2008.0.0 RHEL4.3 RHEL4, RHEL5, SuSE 10, serial tests completed on RHEL3 and SuSE9
      2007.0.0 RedHat AS 3 RH AS3, RH WS3, RH4, SuSE 9.0, SuSE 9.1, SuSE 10.0, Scyld 29cz
      2006.0.1 RedHat AS 3 RH AS3, RH WS3, RH4, SuSE 9.0, SuSE 9.1, SuSE 10.0, Scyld 29cz
      2005.5 RedHat AS 3 RH AS3, RH WS3, RH4, SuSE 9.0, SuSE 9.1, SuSE 10.0, Scyld 29cz
      2005.0.2 RedHat AS 3 RH AS3, SuSE 9.0
      2004 RedHat 3 RedHat 3, SuSE 9.0

    • IA64
      Version Built on Supported
      2011.1 RHEL 4.5 RHEL 4.5+, RHEL 5, ProPack 5 ( SuSE 10 )
      2010 RHEL 4.5 RHEL 4.5+, RHEL 5, ProPack 5 ( SuSE 10 )
      2008.0.0 RedHat AS3 RH AS3, RH WS4, ProPack 5 (SuSE 10), ProPack 4 (SuSE 9), ProPack 3SP2 (RH AS 3), CentOS release 4.4
      2007.0.0 RedHat AS3 RH AS3, RH WS4, ProPack 4 (SuSE 9), ProPack 3SP2 (RH AS 3), CentOS release 4.4
      2006.0 RedHat AS3 RH AS3, RH WS4, ProPack 4 (SuSE 9), ProPack 3SP2 (RH AS 3)
      2005.5 RedHat AS3 RH AS3, RH WS4, ProPack 4 (SuSE 9), ProPack 3SP2 (RH AS 3)
      2005 RedHat 7.2 RedHat 7.2, RedHat 2.1, RH AS 3, RH4 (Fujitsu)
      2004 RedHat 7.2 RedHat 7.2, RedHat 2.1
      Serial will work with RH AS 3, DMP will NOT work without rebuilding the LAM 6.5.6 RPM.
      2001 RedHat 7.2 RedHat 7.2. SMP does not work.
      70.7 SGI PP2.3 SGI PP4. SMP does not work
      Notes:
      • V2001 will NOT run DMP on a glibc 2.3 system. The SGI special will run DMP on a glibc 2.3 system.
      • SGI ProPACK 3 has the same support as RedHat AS 3.
      • SGI ProPACK 4 has the same support as SuSE 9.
      • RedHat EL 3 (and RH WS 3) are the same as RH AS 3 as far as MSC.Nastran is concerned.
      • The 70.7, 2001, and 2004 IA64 versions may requie a new nastran driver to run on any GLIBC 2.3 system.
      • Certain GLIBC 2.3 systems will require the following lines in versions 2005 and earlier. Bad numbers will not result if these lines are not specified, but hard crashes may occur: 
               setenv LD_ASSUME_KERNEL 2.4.19
       setenv LD_PRELOAD /usr/lib/sgi-compat-preload.so
      • See SGI specifics for ProPack questions.
      • RedHat 4 is Newer than RedHat 5. RedHat number was 1, 2, ..., 7, 8, 9, then when back to RH 2.1, 3, 4
  • Which hardware is supported?
    • IA32 systems:
      These systems are 32 bit systems. These include Intel Pentium 3, Intel Pentium 4, AMD Athelon systems. Memory requests on these systems are limited to 2Gb.
    • 8664 systems:
      These systems are memory addressable 64 bit systems. These include AMD/Opteron and Intel/EM64T systems. The current IA32 executables run on this system, but memory requests are limited to 2Gb. As of Nov/2004 a native 2004 version of Nastran (which can access 8Gb of memory) is almost ready for release. I hope to have a 2005 native version released in Q1/2005.
    • IA64 systems:
      These systems are memory addressable 64 bit systems. These include Intel Itanium and Itanium 2 systems. Memory requests on these systems are limited to 8 Gb.
    • ILP64 systems:
      Starting with V2005.5, ILP64 systems have been built (but not delivered) for both IA64 and x8664 platforms. These systems will be available with MD Nastran V2006. ILP64 stands for INTEGER/LONG/POINTER 64 bit systems and are also called "i8" systems. This system will be able to access more than 8Gb of memory.
  • If I have 4 Gb of RAM, why can't I specify "mem=3Gb" on an IA32 system?
    MSC.Nastran allocates memory in one large chunk. IA32 systems can only allocate 2Gb chunks without special mods to the OS. This limitation is partially a restriction of the OS and partially a restriction of the FORTRAN compiler.

    Please note that although MSC.Nastran cannot allocate memory past 2Gb, that the memory will still be used by the OS for cacheing and elasped times can be greatly improved. For example, in the table below are the elapsed times with MSC.Nastran submitted with the same amount of memory (800mb), but the physical memory was increased:

    Physical Memory Elapsed times
    1 Gb 1:15:00
    2 Gb 1:00:00
    3 Gb 45:00

  • If I have 16Gb on an Itanium 2, why can't I specify "mem=10Gb"?
    Since FORTRAN INTEGERs are 32 bits, the maximum index (The "I" in X(I) ) can be 2**32 + 2**31 + 2**30 + ... + 2**0, so the maximun BYTE address is 8Gb. MSC is working on an ILP64 system in which INTEGERs are 64 bits.