System Requirements

Virtual Machines and Emulators

Important: we only offer full support when running SIMetrix on supported operating systems running directly on physical hardware. This excludes running SIMetrix in virtual machines or under emulation on non-supported operating systems. This doesn't mean you can't run SIMetrix on such systems or that we won't support such systems at all. It does mean that we will only be able to help with problems that can be reproduced on a supported OS.

In particular, we can not help with problems with dongles if SIMetrix is running in a virtual machine or under emulation.

Operating System – 64 bit Versions

The following operating systems are fully supported for SIMetrix and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS 64-bit versions:

• Windows® 11 Home, Pro (including variants), and Enterprise
• Windows® 10 Home, Pro, and Enterprise - 64-bit editions

Operating System – 32-bit Versions

The latest version of SIMetrix and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS that will run on a 32-bit operating system is version 8.30. Later releases require a 64 bit system.

Windows® on ARM

SIMetrix and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS are not supported running on ARM based systems.

Hardware

SIMetrix and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS will operate correctly if:

• The system is running one of supported operating systems listed above, AND
• The system meets the minimum hardware requirement for that operating system, AND
• The system's CPU supports the SSE2 instruction set. Any system manufactured after about 2005 is likely to meet this requirement.

SIMetrix and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS are CPU-intensive applications and will benefit from the most powerful processors and largest memories.

Multicore support

SIMetrix Pro and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS Pro are able to use up to 4 physical cores, while SIMetrix Elite, and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS Elite can exploit 16 physical cores.

Please, however, be aware of the following:

• Some processors increase the apparent number of CPUs by using a technology called "Hyperthreading". SIMetrix and SIMetrix/SIMPLIS do not directly use hyperthreaded (also known as "logical") CPUs
• The greatest benefit from multiple cores is achieved when running Monte Carlo analyses and other multiple analysis modes. This applies to both SIMetrix and SIMPLIS simulators. For this application, typical performance benefit of about 75% of the core count can be achieved. So for 4 cores a Monte Carlo run may execute about 3 times faster. The SIMetrix simulator can also exploit multiple cores to gain a speedup for single runs, but the performance benefit achieved is much more modest and typically there is little benefit in having more than about 4 cores

System requirements for older versions

Older versions of SIMetrix will run on the operating systems supported at the time of their release. In general, we have found that all 32-bit Windows® versions of SIMetrix back to version 1.0 will usually run on any 32-bit Windows® operating system, but often need special install procedures. However, we have not tested every version of SIMetrix with every version of Windows® and can make no guarantees or offer any support for non-supported operating systems.

There can be problems with older versions running on 64-bit systems. In particular versions 5.3 or earlier using portable licenses (i.e. with a USB security key) will not work with any 64-bit system.