Idiots guide to setting up Abaqus to use dual core cpu?

[barrind]

We recently upgraded our FEA pcs to dual core xeons running XP64bit and Abaqus 6.6-5 64 bit version. I know there is some info in the Abaqus installation manual but to be honest it seems a bit techie jargon heavy. Given the setup I describe above can someone tell me which files to edit how to get best use of the dual core processors in these new pc's?

Also, and I may have completely misinterperted this, I sort of gather you can network more than one pc together to either pool boths machines memory together for large problems, or spread the solver load to improve speed. I don't suppose there are any idiots guides for this sort of thing also?

 

[Yoman228]

You need to set the "abaqus_v6.env" file. Usually under ABAQUS\<abaqus Version>\site.
you need to add a extra line as follow for 2 cpus.:

CPUS = "2"

Noted that 6 token is needed when you run a job using 2 cpu.

 

[johnhors]

If you run Abaqus from the command line then simply add "cpus = 2" on the end:-

abaqus job=file_name cpus=2

I won't bother trying to run with more than one PC, doubtful if you could get this to work, there's the law of diminishing returns as the speed up from one to two processors is far greater than going from two to four, plus network speed limitations could probably kill any advantage gained.

 

[prescribed]

Take a look at the Installation Guide. There are ways to get what you need in the environment settings.