Hardware Requirements

Here's what you need to ensure that SPACE GASS works as it was designed to do.

• Windows 10 or 11 64-bit
• Intel or AMD processor (Intel multi-core preferred)
• Any modern graphics card with at least 2Gb RAM (NVIDIA GeForce preferred)
• SPACE GASS optimized to use your hardware correctly (see below)

Apple Mac
We're sorry that there is no specific Apple Mac version of SPACE GASS. A Windows emulator such as Parallels Desktop or a Virtual Windows environment are not supported.

Optimize SPACE GASS To Use Your Hardware Correctly - Don't skip this!

The following instructions are intended for SPACE GASS 12.50 and later. A number of the items discussed do not apply to earlier versions of SPACE GASS.

To get the most out of SPACE GASS, it needs to be running in OpenGL shader mode. The benefits of this are:

• Fast, smooth graphics with most modern graphics cards by taking advantage of their awesome parallel processing power.
• Fully rendered deflections rather than just wireframe.
• Shaded and transparent loading, moment, shear, axial, torsion and stress diagrams.
• The entire graphical user interface being silky smooth and responsive.

The difference between SPACE GASS running in OpenGL shader mode instead of software emulation mode is DRAMATIC and makes SPACE GASS much more of a pleasure to use! It is therefore well worthwhile carefully following the steps below to enable OpenGL shader mode. Each of the following steps is very important!

1. Establish exactly which graphics cards you have in your computer

   You can do this by running SPACE GASS 12.50.436 or later, going to "Help => About SPACE GASS..." and looking at the graphics cards listed under "Available Cards".

   

   If you can't run SPACE GASS then you should run MSInfo32.exe from your Windows Start menu, expand the "Components" section of the menu tree on the left and then click on "Display" in the expanded tree. Detailed information about your graphics card(s) will then be displayed on the right. Note that if you have multiple graphics cards then you may need to scroll to see them all.



2. Set SPACE GASS to use your high performance graphics card

   You can skip this step if your computer has only one graphics card, however if you have multiple graphics cards (common in many laptops) then you should ensure that SPACE GASS is using the high performance card rather than the slower onboard one. By default, your computer will probably assign the slow onboard graphics card to SPACE GASS and you will not experience its true graphical performance unless you change it. You can select the high performance card for SPACE GASS by running the settings app for your particular NVIDIA, AMD, HP or other graphics card, or you can do it generically via the "Graphics Settings" panel in Windows 10 as follows:

   Right-click on a blank space of your desktop and select "Display settings". When the display settings panel is visible, on the right side scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Graphics settings" to get to the panel shown below. If "SPACE GASS Core" doesn't appear when "Classic app" is selected, you should click the "Browse" button and then locate and select sgwin.exe from your SPACE GASS program folder. You should then click on "SPACE GASS Core" followed by clicking the "Options" button below it. Finally, in the "Graphics specifications" panel that appears you should select "High performance" and then click "Save".

   

   Setting the high performance graphics card for SPACE GASS only needs to be done once and from then on you can start SPACE GASS in the normal way by double-clicking its shortcut. Note that if you uninstall SPACE GASS and then re-install it, you may have to repeat this step.



3. Update your graphics driver to the latest version (very important!)
   

   The graphics driver contains the OpenGL software that SPACE GASS uses and it is very important that this is up-to-date, otherwise the SPACE GASS graphics may not work correctly and may even crash. You can check the version of your graphics driver by running SPACE GASS, going to "Help => About SPACE GASS..." and looking at the driver version numbers and dates as shown below.

   

   Update the driver for the graphics card used by SPACE GASS via the card manufacturer's website. Do not use Windows Update! Links for some common graphics card manufacturers are: NVIDIA, AMD, ATI, HP and Intel. Note that if you are updating the driver for your graphics card, do not tick the box to install Raptr or PlaysTV because they will cause SPACE GASS and other high-end graphics programs to crash. If you still have problems after updating your graphics driver then check if Raptr or PlaysTV are installed and uninstall them!



4. Enable OpenGL shader mode
   

   Run SPACE GASS, go to "Settings => General Preferences" and check that "Disable OpenGL shaders" is unticked. If ticked, it will be forcing SPACE GASS to run its graphical user interface in a slow software emulation mode. If it is ticked then untick it.

   



5. Check that everything is set correctly
   

   Once you have successfully followed the above steps, shut down SPACE GASS and then restart it via its shortcut in the normal way. Go to "Help => About SPACE GASS..." and check the "Graphics Card" field and the "Available Cards" fields. The slow onboard graphics cards are typically Intel and are vastly inferior to NVIDIA, AMD or ATI cards. Also check the "Shading Enabled" field and make sure it says "Yes". If it is still using the wrong graphics card or if "Shading Enabled" says "No" then repeat the above steps and check them again.

   




6. Once you have optimized SPACE GASS correctly for your graphics hardware, you will find that it not only operates much faster and smoother but your diagrams will look like:

   This...
   

   Instead of this...
   

If you need assistance then feel free to email us at admin@spacegass.com, and please attach an image of your "Help => About SPACE GASS..." display to the email so that we can see the details of your system.