STAAD Workstation hardware

[hamma]

Does any one know what modern computer hardware is most appropate for STAAD? Such as if staad will utilize duel proccers (xeon *2), duel core archetcure (Pentum 4D), or 64bit proccesers (AMD). Up to how much ram could it use? We can max it out to 4gig but is it worth it?

Is there some one from REI or Bently that I could contact about this?

Thanks

 

[ThomasH]

I tested running STAAD on a Xeon machine a few years back and it actually was slower than a "normal" machine. I also found out that if a software isn't written for SSE operations etc this can happen. So my guess is that STAAD will not utilize a modern computer very efficiently. The only thing that works is probably high clockspeed. Ofcourse the means a modern computer but the additional development (dual core, 64 bit, etc) will probably not increase STAADs performance.

If we would discuss a real FEM-software like Nastran, ABAQUS etc the answer would probably be very different.

Regards

Thomas

 

[hamma]

Thanks for the STAAD bashing. I didn't know how low STAAD was on the totem pole of FEM. Due to finical and project requirements, we have to use STAAD.

Is there anyone else that has different hardware experence with STAAD

 

[ThomasH]

I didn't mean to "bash" STAAD, only give some of my experience ;-).

I don't know of any structural software that can compete with the "real" FEM-software in terms of solver performance. And normally they don't have to.

Regards

Thomas

 

[DaveVikingPE]

For NASTRAN, I prefer a VAX.