Yes, I plan to use 64-bit windows to overcome the
limit of 2gb RAM. My PC has 8 GB RAM. But my
ANSYS can only uses less than 2GB now to solve the
contact problems. Thus it's slow now.
I am planning to use W64. Like Paulliu I came up against the RAM limit with 32Bit processing but went with 64B Linux on a Intel Xeon machine and 6GB of RAM. This solved that problem but produced a myriad of others so when the code I use gets ported I plan to benchmark the two OSs. I expect W64 to be slightly slower but more robust on a number of things. I expect W64 to be the winner overall.
Paulliu,
What version of Ansys are you using? I currently run V10.0 on a 32-bit Windows XP machine but I'm in the process of getting funding together for a 64-bit machine. I've been giving some careful thought to which operating system to go with...either Linux or Win64. Are people still facing the 2 GB limit even with the most recent Ansys version running win64? Also, will the Ansys disk which I have now install on a Linux machine? Or will I have to get a special disk sent with a version ported for Linux? Sorry if these questions seem simple. I'm still in my infancy when it comes to my knowledge of computers.
The 2GB memory limit was posed by the Windows XP operating
system, not the ANSYS version or the ANSYS Inc.
Over years, Microsoft has slowly upgraded the Windows
operating system, first from 16-bit to 32-bit. Now we'll
need the 64-bit upgraded from the 32-bit. The 64-bit
system supports using 128 GB RAM, although theoretically
it should support more, perhaps in order that Microsoft
can make more and more money down the road when
people need their newer operating systems.
Microsoft gives 5 Top reasons for the 64-bit Windows:
An update to this thread. I've now converted to XP64 with MARC (v2005r3) and everthing is running fine. There are problems with a lack of drivers for some hardware (in my case a USB network card) but I don't have the problems that 64B Linux caused me in the past.
