• Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 3 or later ^[1]
• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 (see Notice below)
• Intel Pentium III, Pentium 4 or Pentium Xeon* cpus and AMD Opteron (see Important Notes below)
• StudioTools is a 32-bit application. Any 64-bit capable hardware listed in this Qualification Chart is only qualified to run in a 32-bit environment. This includes the AMD Opteron and Intel EM64T based systems.

[1]     In certain rare cases Windows 2000 SP4 configured machines will encounter very slow startup times of StudioTools  if the computer has an active network connection. If possible, it is recommended that you either upgrade to Windows XP or downgrade to Service Pack 3.

Contents of this page:

• Qualified Workstations
• Qualified Graphics Cards and Driver Summary
• Wirefile compatibility chart
• StereoViewing Capable Graphics Cards
• AntiAliasing in StudioTools
• Running StudioTools on Ultra High Resolution Displays
• Running StudioTools on Dual Monitor Configurations
• Tablet Support
• Important Notes on Minimum Requirements
• Detailed Driver Notes and Settings

Dell Mobile Solutions: ^[1]

Precision M50, Nvidia Quadro4 500GoGL, 700GoGL

Precision M60, Nvidia Quadro FXGo700

Precision M60+, Nvidia Quadro FXGo1000

Precision M70, Nvidia Quadro FXGo1400

Latitude M20, ATI Mobility FireGL V3100

HP Workstations:
XW9300
XW8200
XW6200
XW4200
XW4300

XW8000
XW6000
XW5000
XW4100
X4000
X2000
X1000

HP Compaq nw8000,
ATI Mobility FireGL T2

HP Compaq nw8240,
ATI Mobility FireGL  V5000

Intellistation A Pro (6224)
Intellistation M Pro (6850, 6218, 6219, 6230, 6225) 
Intellistation Z Pro (6221, 6223)

IBM Mobile Solutions: ^[1]

[2] The CELSIUS Mobile H computer ships with a removable keyboard using Bluetooth® technology. This keyboard will not work correctly with StudioTools when using any of the keyboard hotkey combinations that require simultaneous use of two or more keys e.g. Shift+Alt or Shift+ Ctrl. Please use one of the following workarounds:

1. Use PS/2 cable to connect the wireless keyboard to the computer (provided by Fujitsu-Siemens, USB mouse required with this configuration)
2. Use external keyboard using a standard PS/2 cable.

Using StudioTools with a Tablet:

• StudioTools has been tested and confirmed to work with the Wacom Intuos2 series of tablets using the 4.78-6 driver 
• StudioTools has been tested and confirmed to work with the Wacom Intuos3 with either 4.85-6  (see Limitations below).

Active Tablet Displays: StudioTools has been tested and confirmed to work with the Wacom Cintiq 18SX Active tablet. At time of press Alias has confirmed stable and decent performance under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. A DVI compatible graphics card is required to use the Cintiq series of tablets. Driver version: 4.75-9 is required. Cintiq 21UX is currently untested.

Note Regarding Dual Monitor Configurations: We have encountered a problem whereby a dual monitor configuration will cause incorrect cursor behavior when spanning multiple monitors. Alias is currently investigating this problem with Wacom. At this time there is no solution. Refer to Dual Monitor Support below for more information on running StudioTools with dual monitors.

Tablet Driver Notes/Limitations:

Intuos3 drivers 4.85-6:

StudioTools has been tested on the IBM T221 LCD monitor running at a resolution of 3840x2400 with FX2000/3000 graphics adapters. See Detailed Hardware Notes below for more information on each card.

Note: You will likely notice a performance degradation when comparing a comparable graphics configuration at lower resolutions.

Display Mode One: Two Separate Displays (sometimes referred to as Clone view)

Limitations

• The Studio interface will only be displayed properly on the primary monitor.
• Drop down menus, marking menus and DirectRender windows will only display properly on the primary monitor.
• If you want to use Studio for modelling on the second display, open the Display properties again and set it as the primary display.

Display Mode Two: Spanned Desktop

In this mode the graphics driver interprets the two displays as one virtual desktop, so if you run a single monitor at 1280x1024 then the display resolution in a spanned mode would be 2560x1024.

Limitations

When using Studio with two displays, where one display is the Wacom Cintiq, you cannot run in a spanned mode. To configure your system to use the Wacom Cintiq in a dual monitor configuration follow these steps:

• Uninstall the Wacom display driver (if you were previously using a regular Wacom tablet)
• Connect the Wacom Cintiq to either the first or second graphics port
• Open the Display Properties, select the Wacom display and set it as the primary monitor.
• Install the Wacom display driver
• Open Settings>Control Panel>Wacom Tablet Properties and select Calibrate to align the tablet to the Cintiq display.

Note: When using a 'spanned' desktop without the Cintiq, StudioTools runs properly on both displays.

Examples of Graphics cards without Hardware overlays include (but are not restricted to):

Display Properties> Appearance or Effects> Visual Effects> Use transition effects for menus and tooltips> OFF or Scroll Effect

Mouse Properties> Pointers> Enable Pointer Shadow> OFF

• Intel Pentium III or AMD Opteron processor or greater is required for StudioTools. Any CPU that fails to support the MMX instruction set will likely encounter problems running StudioTools.
• A three button mouse is required.
• A graphics tablet is recommended for use with the sketching functionality.
• At least 512MB or more is recommended to run StudioTools for Windows.
• It may be possible to successfully use StudioTools for Windows with a non-qualified configuration, however, support and maintenance programs will be subject to the Alias Support services guidelines.
• Windows 2000 Server has not been tested in any way by Alias and cannot guarantee its performance or stability.
• The configurations shown are subject to change, and additional qualified configurations may be added after qualification testing has been carried out.
• Where Graphics Controllers are configurable, you must have at least 64MB of texture memory. Due to the differences in the manner in which hardware vendors approach display memory, we suggest that you consult your hardware vendor to ensure that your configuration will support your required resolution.
• The graphics drivers specified in this table are the drivers that were used for the qualification process. While it may be possible to use StudioTools for Windows successfully on earlier or later drivers, Alias cannot guarantee their performance.
• Alias will continue to explore new candidates for StudioTools for Windows qualification and will monitor the current configurations. For the most recent information on qualification, please refer to www.alias.com.

Windows XP: 8.103.2-WHQL-050226a-021471C-HP