what is the optimum system requirements for LabVIEW?

[asukumari]

1. This whitepaper here tells me that the below are the requirements, but I believe this is the minimum system requirements. But what are the optimum system requirements, because from my past experience with LabVIEW, I know its a RAM hogger. Planning to put in an order for a dell workstation, would that be sufficient ?
2. Is it Ok to install the 32-bit version of LabVIEW 2017 since the white paper says LabVIEW 2017 (64-bit) supports a limited number of modules and toolkits. Or should I wait for 2018 release ?
   

Windows
	Run-Time Engine	Development Environment
Processor	Pentium 4M/Celeron 866 MHz (or equivalent) or later (32-bit) Pentium 4 G1 (or equivalent) or later (64-bit)	Pentium 4M (or equivalent) or later (32-bit) Pentium 4 G1 (or equivalent) or later (64-bit)
RAM	256 MB	1 GB
Screen Resolution	1024 x 768 pixels	1024 x 768 pixels
OS	Windows 10/8.1/8/7 SP1 (32- and 64-bit) Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit)	Windows 10/8.1/8/7 SP1 (32- and 64-bit) Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit)
Disk Space	620 MB	5 GB (includes default drivers from NI Device Drivers DVD)

[tyk007]

LabVIEW 32-bit runs with the large address aware flag and can consume up to 4Gb virtual memory on a 64-bit OS. Unless you are working on some really large data structures (image processing is a classic case) going to LabVIEW 64-bit is generally not necessary.

I typically run develop my real-time and FPGA systems in a x64 virtual machine with four cores @ 2GHz and a total of 4Gb allocated memory and it runs just fine in development (this includes a local Xilinx compiler etc.). To be fair I run my VMs off an SSD; most performance issues I have seen are really down to disk bandwidth more than anything else. I strongly suggest your new PC has an SDD that you can run your applications and projects from.

I would have though that you'd be hard pushed to buy a brand new "workstation" and not meet something akin to "optimum specs".

[natasftw]

How would you define optimum?  The best possible?  Then get the best PC possible.

But, I'd be surprised if your Dell wasn't sufficient to develop.

As far as waiting, NI Week is in May.  Can you wait that long?

[Terry_ALE]

If you are running low on memory or processor speed, see http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361P-01/lvconcepts/managing_performance_and_memory/

[wiebe@CARYA]

---

mariasuku wrote:

2) Is it Ok to install the 32-bit version of LabVIEW 2017 since the white paper says LabVIEW 2017 (64-bit) supports a limited number of modules and toolkits. Or should I wait for 2018 release ?

---

I think the toolkits don't support 64-bit. It's not LabVIEW not supporting the toolkits.So LV17 or LV18 might make any difference regarding the supported toolkits.

More and more toolkits get supported under 64-bit, don't think it has much to do with the release of LabVIEW, although the release of the toolkits might be planned at the same time.

Could be wrong. I don't use much toolkits. I'd say: check if the toolkits you plan to use are supported. Base your choice on that. Makes no sense to choose based on all toolkits...

And you can always change later... And maybe (not sure) even install both 32 and 64 bit versions?

[crossrulz · Accepted solution]

My recommendation is to use at least a medium level engineering or gaming computer.  RAM usually is not the issue unless you write some horrible memory hogging code.  But I tend to always max out the RAM when I specify a computer.  More important, in my opinion, is a good video card for development.  Not nearly as important for deployed executables.

I have noticed a consensus over the last 8-9 years that pretty much everybody still uses the 32-bit version of LabVIEW, mostly due to the toolkits.  Unless you really need a ton of RAM, there is no real benefit to go 64-bit other than a very minor performance boost (not having to go through the WOW emulation layer on a 64-bit Windows OS).  I will note here that LabVIEW NXG is only 64-bit.

[wiebe@CARYA]

---

@crossrulz wrote:

I have noticed a consensus over the last 8-9 years that pretty much everybody still uses the 32-bit version of LabVIEW, mostly due to the toolkits.  

---

For me it's more like: why take the risk? Why change something that worked for years to something that might not work? Huge memory requirements are a good reason...

There will be a turning point though. At some point (could be soon), new toolkits or upgrades will probably be released for 64-bit only. I'd say that should not happen until all toolkits are supported on 64-bit, but who am I... Some toolkits might be marked deprecated instead of converted to 64-bit.

[PiDi]

---

wiebe@CARYA wrote:

---

There will be a turning point though. At some point (could be soon), new toolkits or upgrades will probably be released for 64-bit only. I'd say that should not happen until all toolkits are supported on 64-bit, but who am I... Some toolkits might be marked deprecated instead of converted to 64-bit.

---

LabVIEW NXG is 64-bit only. There you go.

[wiebe@CARYA]

---

@PiDi wrote:

---

wiebe@CARYA wrote:

---

There will be a turning point though. At some point (could be soon), new toolkits or upgrades will probably be released for 64-bit only. I'd say that should not happen until all toolkits are supported on 64-bit, but who am I... Some toolkits might be marked deprecated instead of converted to 64-bit.

---

LabVIEW NXG is 64-bit only. There you go.

---

Obviously, but even for normal LV I expect that to happen.

[RTSLVU]

Hmmm I have been running LabVIEW on various machines since we were all running Windows 98 and I can't say I ever ran into a lack of RAM issue unless my program had a memory leak. (like a string display that keeps growing and growing with status messages)

Anyway this is my current development station and in some ways it is "too fast". (yes I said TOO fast)

Like when dragging something on or wiring the block diagram it will scroll way off out into the distance in the blink of an eye if I am not careful.

BTW: I am running 32 bit LabVIEW and have no RAM issues