Qualification of Maya 8.5 on Supported Windows Operating Systems

Last updated: March 28nd, 2007

Contents of this document:

• General Configuration
• OS and Configuration
  • Operating Systems and processors
  • Notes on Operating Systems
  • Workstations
  • Notebooks
  • Notes on Computer Models
• Graphic Cards and Drivers
  • Graphics Cards & Driver Versions
  • Detailed Driver Notes and Settings
• Compiler Requirements

General Configuration

In order to determine whether your system is qualified to run Maya and mental ray for Maya, you must have a qualified processor, operating system, graphics card, and graphics driver. See the following sections.

As well, you must meet other requirements such as:

• a three button mouse
• an Ethernet network card, or hardware dongle (for product licensing). Customers intending to license their Autodesk software based on an external network card should be aware that Autodesk does not support the use of these devices and cannot guarantee that software will operate correctly when licensed in this way.
• at least 1024 MB of RAM (more is recommended)
• a graphics card and display device capable of screen resolutions of at least 1280 x 1024.

General disclaimers:

• The configurations shown are subject to change, and additional qualified configurations may be added after qualification testing has been carried out.
• It may be possible to successfully use Maya with a non-qualified or partially qualified configuration, but support and maintenance programs will be subject to the Autodesk Support services guidelines.
• We are unable to qualify all graphics cards on all operating systems.
• The graphics drivers specified in this document are the drivers that were used for the qualification process. While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later drivers, Autodesk cannot guarantee their performance or behavior.
• Due to the many operating system and architecture differences between the supported platforms, the results of some operations will differ on different platforms. This is most noticeable with operations which iterate to reach their results -- leading to cumulatively large difference -- e.g., dynamics, some rendering. You may not be able to "mix and match" renderings on different platforms.
• Standard pen pressure sensitivity with Wacom tablets is supported. However, Wacom mice which are used with tablets have significant limitations and cannot be fully integrated with standard navigation in Maya. We recommend using a standard mouse with Maya, and limiting pen usage to Maya's Paint Effects and Sculpting tools. Autodesk is working with Wacom to achieve full support for Wacom products.
• When texture images are stored on systems remote from the rendering process; depending on network speed, specifications and load it is possible that the renderer may be unable to access a texture file on demand and may 'drop' individual textures on a frame by frame basis. To reduce this occurrence, store textures on a system local to the rendering process.

Operating Systems and processors

The following table shows the operating systems and processor combinations qualified to run Maya and mental ray for Maya.

• Systems marked "Qualified" have been tested by Autodesk and have been found to operate as described.
• Systems marked "Untested" or "Unsupported" have not been tested by Autodesk.
• Systems marked "Unsuported" are not considered suitable for use with Maya.
• It may be possible to successfully use Maya on Untested, Unsupported or Not Qualified systems, but support and maintenance programs will be subject to the Autodesk Support services guidelines.
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Notes on Operating Systems

• We do not recommend saving data directly from Maya to NFS or Novell Netware or other remote mounted file systems. We have received several reports of data corruption when saving in this method although we have been unable to reproduce this. We strongly recommend that you save the files locally and then copy the data to the mounted storage system.
• Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (SP2). After installation of Service Pack 2, Maya or its component programs may not launch successfully. If this occurs, you may either Unblock the program via the Windows Firewall Security Alert dialogue, or add it as an Exception in the Exceptions Tab in the Windows Firewall dialogue box. For more information, please see the Microsoft Update at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=842242&product=windowsxpsp2
• If the Maya tear-off pull-down menus don't display properly on Windows XP with UI schemes, set UI preference to Windows Classic Style. Start > Settings > Control Panel > Display > Windows Classic

Workstations

Notebooks

Notes on Computer Models

Graphics Cards and Driver Versions

Maya is qualified for the following graphics cards using the specified driver, with the listed Operating Systems, and any of the workstations or notebooks listed in the Workstations and Notebooks tables. Please see the Detailed Driver Notes and Settings for applicable settings and potential Limitations specific to your graphics card.

Important: Graphics drivers are usually different for different Windows operating systems. Autodesk has tested only drivers listed under each OS. While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later drivers, Autodesk cannot guarantee their performance or behavior. If you encounter problems with a driver, we strongly suggest that you contact the graphic card vendor to report your problem.

Notes about graphics cards

• Where Graphics Controllers are configurable, you must have at least 32MB of texture memory (TRAM). 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.
• Autodesk recommends the use of "Span Mode" for Dual Monitor configurations using Nvidia cards.

Video Cards without Hardware Overlay Planes

Using video cards without Hardware Overlay planes (or Hardware Overlay planes turned off) can result in poor performance for certain operations within Maya including (but not restricted to) use of tools based on Artisan or Paint Textures technology. There will also be visual differences compared with Hardware overlays that may result in difficulty seeing or manipulating aspects of the scene or Maya interface.

Detailed Driver Notes and Settings

Nvidia GeForce GPUs

There are many cards based on GeForce GPU chipsets. Nvidia and Autodesk do not recommend these cards for use with Maya as you may experience various refresh, display and stability problems and inadequate performance. We suggest you choose from Nvidia's workstation cards instead, such as the Quadro families which are much better suited to high-end 3D packages such as Maya. Nvidia GeForce VS Quadro White Paper [PDF]

Compiler Requirements

If you are building plug-ins for Autodesk Maya 8.5, note the following:

The Maya API requires a specific compiler and linker, on each of the platforms Autodesk supports in order to build compatible plug-ins.
The Visual Studio 2005 compiler is used to build Autodesk Maya 8.5 on Windows. Using this compiler will guarantee binary compatibility when building plug-ins.