Rhino System Requirements – 01/04/2008

Note that these requirements are different from those listed by McNeel. They represent new machine specifications available at the time of writing.

Our suggested minimum system requirements for running Rhino are:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz or AMD equivalent
1 GB RAM
80 GB HD
Open GL Graphics Card
Windows XP

A native version for Rhino on Mac OSX is in development. See the latest information from McNeel about Rhino for OSX here. In the meantime Rhino runs under BootCamp or Parallels Desktop on MacOSX.

What specification is best for Rhino ultimately depends on what you are using Rhino for but here are some pointers on the various facets that can influence performance.


Operating System

Windows XP Professional Rhino 4.0 runs well on Windows XP Professional. This 32 bit application has been around for a while and although it is being replaced by the different variants of Vista many PC manufacturers will offer downgrades from Vista to XP Pro.

Windows Vista Rhino 4.0 now runs under all Vista 32 bit versions, however Vista uses more system resources than XP and most professional CAD and modelling users still favour XP because of this. There may also be incompatibilities with some graphics cards and drivers. See McNeel’s thoughts on Vista here.

Windows XP Professional X64 Rhino 4.0 is a 32 bit application and will run on XP Pro X64 (but only in 32 bit mode) and although this is not officially supported we have found this to be stable in a professional environment. Running Rhino 4 in a 64 bit environment will allow it to access more memory (a total of 3GB) and the 64 bit version of Rhino 5 currently in development will allow significantly greater amounts of RAM to be accessed.

Windows Vista X64 Comments as for Windows Vista


Processor

Most modern chips from Intel and AMD are multi core but even with 64 bit operating systems such as Windows XP64 or Windows Vista 64, modelling applications such as SolidWorks, 3D Studio Max and Rhino use only one processor core for modelling tasks whereas rendering plug-ins like V-Ray,Brazil and Maxwell will make use of all the available cores. Rhino 5.0 64 bit will still use only one processor core for modelling but will be able to access much greater amounts of memory.
 
Given that (for instance) a quad core 2.4 GHz processor costs roughly the same as a dual core 3.0 GHz processor and that modelling will only address one core then if your primary focus is modelling then the dual core machine will be much more cost effective and just as fast. For modelling only processor speed is most important whereas if your primary focus is rendering then the quad core machine would speed up your renders considerably and so would be the preferred option.


Graphics Cards

There are two main graphics card vendors, NVIDIA and ATI. Both manufacturers produce both consumer cards targeted towards gamers and professional workstation cards targeted towards the 3D CAD market. NVIDIA’s gaming cards are called GeForce and the pro cards Quadro. ATI’s gaming cards are called Radeon and the pro cards Fire GL.

Historically we have generally recommended NVIDIA graphics cards as these (particularly the workstation class Quadro cards) are well proven with Rhino. Lately, however, we have back to back tested some of the latest ATI cards against the already excellent NVIDIA Quadro FX3500 and found that the ATI Fire GL V5600 gives noticeably better performance when manipulating large (eg 250 GB+) models in rendered/shaded mode. There are still some issues with Rhino and ATI cards but provided Rhino is configured correctly and the ATI cards are used in conjunction with certain other components the performance increase can be compelling.

McNeel’s document on troubleshooting display problems

McNeel’s document on Rhino V4 Display FAQ


Memory

We recommend 2GB of RAM as a useful minimum specification. Not all memory is the same and high speed low latency RAM will make a difference to performance particularly if the cache speed of the memory is matched to that of the processors.

Rhino 4.0 will address a maximum of 2GB RAM when running on 32 bit operating systems; however if the /3GB switch is set Rhino can address 3GB. There can be associated problems with setting this switch. See McNeel’s thoughts here.

Rhino 4.0 will address a maximum of 3GB RAM when running on 64 bit operating systems. The 64 bit version of Rhino 5 currently in development will allow significantly greater amounts of RAM to be accessed when running in a 64 bit OS.


Specific Hardware Requirements

As the UK ’s leading Rhinoceros Specialist, we are often asked about system specifications and Simply Rhino is proud to announce that we have been working with the award winning manufacturer Very PC to formulate specifications for a new range of Designed for Rhino machines.