System Requirements

Windows 7, XP Professional, Vista, 2003 Server and 2008 Server are supported.  Older versions of Windows, including Windows 98, ME and NT, are no longer supported.  64-bit versions of Windows 7, XP Professional, Vista and 2008 Server are supported, with TransCAD/TransModeler running as a 32-bit application.  We are now recommending these 64-bit OS’s for most new machines, so that they will be able to access more memory when a 64-bit version of TransCAD 6.0 is released in the future.  In house, our preferred OS is now 64-bit Windows 7 Professional

TransCAD/TransModeler benefit from the fastest processors, and we recommend 4-core and 6-core single and dual processor machines for running large models. TransCAD and TransModeler have key multi-threaded procedures that automatically sense and take advantage of multiple cores and multiple CPUs. In particular, the standard user equilibrium (UE) traffic assignment will scale almost linearly with the number of cores. UE will run roughly four times faster when there are two dual core CPUs or a single quad core CPU. Hyperthreading may offer a further speedup but less than that provided by additional physical cores. There are also procedures whose performance scales with the clock speed of the CPU, so higher clock speeds are always desirable. 

For workstations, we recommend the Intel Nehalem family of processors (Core i7 and Xeon 3500/3600 and 5500/5600 series), since they offer substantial performance improvements over the older Intel Core 2 family of processors. The Xeon W3520-W3580 are single chip workstation processors, similar to the consumer Core i7 processors, that have four cores plus hyperthreading. The Xeon E5520-W5590 add the ability to pair the chips, so that dual chip machines can provide eight cores of processing plus hyperthreading. The W5590 tops out at a speed of 3.33GHz.  Intel just released a new generation of i7 and Xeon processors that improve on the older models and now have 6-core versions (Core i7 Extreme 980 and Xeon E5645-X5680). The Core i5 processors should also be satisfactory, but somewhat slower, since they are quad-core Nehalem processors with the hyperthreading disabled. 

Currently, our fastest computer for TransCAD is a Dell Prevision T5500 workstation with two 2.93GHz X5570 processors and 64-bit Vista Business. We expanded the memory to 24GB and added an nVidia GTX285 graphics card. 

Our recently purchased mainstream workstations are HP Pavilion Elite HPE-180t’s with a Core i7-980. These machines perform very well and are less expensive than the dual processor models; they use cheaper memory. Our configurations include either 12 or 24GB of memory, an nVidia GTX260 and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional. 

The Intel Core 2 processor architecture was our previous recommendation and still performs very well. It was introduced by Intel in 2006 and performs substantially better than the older NetBurst Pentium/Xeon branded computers. This family includes the Core 2 Duo procesors for desktops and notebooks and the newer Xeons (5100, 5300, and 5400) for workstations, which vary in their clock speed and the amount of onboard cache. 

We have not tested the latest high end AMD processors, but will probably do so in the future. 

For notebooks, we recommend either the fastest Core 2 Duo/Quad processors (2.8-3.06GHz) or a 2.0GHz Mobile Core i7 Extreme. The slower Mobile Core i7s (1.6-1.7GHz) are less competitive due to the substantially slower clock speeds. We recently purchased a 15” Alienware laptop with the Mobile Core i7 Extreme and have been very impressed with its performance for TransModeler. 

We no longer recommend purchasing machines with a single CPU and only one core or any of the Intel NetBurst Pentiums, but that does not mean that TransCAD or TransModeler will not run on them for modest size applications.

For dual processor, quad-core machines we recommend at least 6-8GB of memory.  For running large transportation models, we recommend 3-4GB of RAM for single CPU machines.  For small applications, 1GB is sufficient.  The next version of TransCAD will be supplied in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.  For the 64-bit version, we recommend at least 12GB of RAM and 64-bit Windows 7.

The memory configuration can make a significant performance difference with the Xeon 5100 and 5300 series.  With our Dell Precision 490s with the Intel 5000X chipset, the optimal configuration is four 667MHz FB-DIMMs, which is 10% faster than with two DIMMs.  Each memory architecture has its own optimal configuration.  For the Core 2 Duo, the use of two 667MHz DDR2 DIMMs is preferred.  The DDR3 memory used with the Nehalem processors is optimized by using multiples of three DIMMs.

For systems running Windows 7 or Vista, we recommend a minimum of 3-4GB.

200GB or more of disk storage space is recommended.  If you will be working with many large data sets, you will want much more hard disk storage.  The 7200rpm SATA drives are a good choice for high performance at an inexpensive price.  Using two hard drives can improve performance when separate drives are utilized for input and output for procedures.  This improvement can be obtained more generally by using two drives with RAID level 0 (striping) either in software or hardware. A cost-effective solution that we can recommend is use of 2 SATA drives with a RAID controller.  For faster disk performance at a higher price, two or more SAS 15,000rpm drives with a hardware RAID controller are suggested.  It is always wise to frequently backup your important data, but this is especially true for RAID 0, which seems to fail more often.

Some of the new solid state drives (SSD) are very fast and we expect that they will replace hard drives with moving parts in the future.  These drives can be used with good advantage for some of the intensive I/O tasks in model runs.  We have been impressed with the new Intel X25-M drives; a 160GB model is available for $500.  For best performance, it is important to look at the write speed of the SSD.

A DVDROM drive is required as TransCAD and TransModeler are supplied on DVD.

We recommend for archival purposes, purchasing a drive that also can write DVD discs. Newer models can write both CDs and DVDs and are available for under $100.

We are starting to purchase Blu-ray BD-R drives to serve large backup requirements, since they can write up to 50GB on a single disc.  They are backwards compatible with CDs and DVDs and are now about $200.

For TransModeler, a good video card is critical for the animation of the simulation.  TransModeler has full 3D animation that requires hardware based OpenGL acceleration.  For the best 3D performance we recommend the ATI Radeon HD5800 series and the nVidia GeForce GTX200 series (consumer) cards.  The nVidia Quadro FX (workstation) 3800/4800/5800 cards should also work, but cost significantly more and will not provide as good animation performance.  The Radeon HD5870 costs about $500 and the nVidia GTX285 costs about $400.

We expect the new nVidia “Fermi” GTX400 series cards to perform very well, but have yet to try one.

The nVidia GeForce 8 and 9 series also work well.  We are cannot recommend the older ATI video cards for Transmodeler 3D, since their OpenGL drivers seem much slower than the nVidia drivers.

The older nVidia GeForce 7 series, the older nVidia Quadro FX and the ATI Radeon cards will also work, but with lower 3D performance.  A minimum of 128MB of video memory is required, but 512MB is recommended.

For good 3D animation with TransModeler on a notebook, we recommend a high end nVidia graphics card.  Many older laptops cannot animate complex 3D simulations. 

For TransCAD, any of video adapters mentioned in the preceding paragraph will provide good 2D performance and have OpenGL acceleration for 3D.  Avoid the nVidia Quadro NVS cards, since they do not provide 3D acceleration.

This is very dependent on user preferences.  A 20” or larger monitor that can display at least 1280x1024 is recommended.  We like the 24” wide-screen panels that can display 1920x1080.  We mostly purchase Dell UltraSharp LCDs, but we like the Samsung panels as well.

This is site dependent. Gigabit Ethernet is a good choice for new installations.

TransCAD should work with any printers that work well with Microsoft Windows.  We have had good luck with high resolution (e.g. 1440 x 720) Epson printers in small and medium formats as well as with large format HP inkjet printers (plotters).  Caliper produces large format maps and exhibit graphics using a Hewlett Packard DesignJet 800.  We also use HP Color LaserJet CP6015, 5500, and 3800 for smaller maps.

Many of our above suggestions also apply to notebook computers. We recommend either the 2.0GHz Mobile Core i7 Extreme or a Core 2 Duo/Quad with the highest clock speed that you can afford. We recommend a 7200rpm drive, now available in configurations up to 500GB or a fast SSD. It is also important to have a good video processor with nVidia graphics (for TransModeler).

We do not recommend running large TransCAD models or TransModeler simulations in a virtual computing environment (VMWare, Windows Terminal Server, etc).  Our compute intensive engineering applications will at times make use of all the resources available to them.  This is especially true of CPU and for TransModeler GPU resources.  While key components are multi-threaded, other portions are not and benefit from the fastest clock speeds available.  Typical virtualized servers have no more CPU capacity than high-end engineering workstations, so it is not feasible to replace multiple workstations with a single server and it makes little financial sense to do so.

For running TransCAD for the Web, we recommend Windows 2003 Server along with the recommended security patches including using Microsoft's security lock down tool to disable all unused functionality.  Windows 2008 Server is also supported.  The Web Edition of 2003/2008 Server is often a cost-effective choice; 2008 Web Server no longer limits the memory to 2GB.

For the hardware, a RAID disk system is recommended along with the other higher performance suggestions noted above.  A minimum of 2GB of memory is suggested for Web Servers.  Avoid standard server configurations that have poor performing video cards (or motherboard chips) as these will slow down map serving