Chapter 2: Installation Prerequisites

Prior to installing Discovery products, verify that your installation computer has the following prerequisites.

Operating System Requirements

One of the following:

  • Microsoft® Windows 10 version 22H2 or later (Professional, Enterprise & Education)

    • Supported Releases: General Availability Channel and Long-Term Servicing Channel (Windows 10 Only)

  • Microsoft® Windows 11 version 21H2 or later (Professional, Enterprise & Education)

  • Microsoft® Windows Server 2019 (Standard) or Windows Server 2022 (Standard)

System Requirements

  • 64-bit Intel or AMD system

  • Disk Space and Memory:

    • 16 GB RAM or greater

    • 32 GB disk space

Video Card Requirements

User systems should have a dedicated graphics card for Discovery. As detailed in the table below, Discovery's minimum and recommended video card requirements differ depending on the product stage and solver being used.

For information on the most recently tested graphics cards, see the Platform Support section of the Ansys Website and view the Graphics Cards Tested PDF for your release.

Note:  With a 4K monitor, Ansys recommends use of a video card with more than 4 GB of dedicated video memory.

Table 2.1: Discovery Stages and Video Card Requirements

Discovery Stage and SolverMinimum Video Card RequirementsRecommended Video Card Requirements

  • Model stage

Dedicated graphics card with the latest vendor drivers supporting OpenGL version 4.6 and a minimum of 2 GB of dedicated video memory

Dedicated NVIDIA Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro graphics card with the latest vendor drivers supporting OpenGL version 4.6 and a minimum of 4 GB of dedicated video memory

  • Explore stage

  • Refine stage with LiveGX solver

  • Dedicated NVIDIA GPU, Maxwell series or newer

  • 4 GB of dedicated video memory

    Note:  Update your graphics card to the latest drivers from the NVIDIA website prior to installation. At a minimum, you must be using driver version 456.38.

    With AMD cards and non-compliant NVIDIA cards, Discovery still functions but access to the Explore stage, or to the Refine stage using the LiveGX solver, is disabled.

  • Dedicated NVIDIA GPU, Pascal series or newer

  • 8 GB dedicated video memory

    Note:  Update your graphics card to the latest drivers from the NVIDIA website prior to installation. At a minimum, you must be using driver version 456.38.

    With AMD cards and non-compliant NVIDIA cards, Discovery still functions but access to the Explore stage, or to the Refine stage using the LiveGX solver, is disabled.

  • Refine stage with Fluent solver

  • Refine stage with MAPDL solver

Dedicated NVIDIA Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro graphics card with the latest vendor drivers supporting OpenGL version 4.6 and a minimum of 4 GB of dedicated video memory

Dedicated NVIDIA Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro graphics card with the latest vendor drivers supporting OpenGL version 4.6 and a minimum of 8 GB of dedicated video memory


Note:  You can download the latest official NVIDIA drivers from www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx.

Unsupported Video Cards

The following cards are no longer supported at 2024 R2. In general, Discovery maintains support for as long as NVIDIA drivers and SDKs allow:

  • Consumer

    • GeForce 600 series (for example, GeForce GT625)

      • NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

      • NVIDIA GeForce GT 640

      • NVIDIA GeForce GT 730

      • NVIDIA GeForce GT 740

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 645

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (192-bit)

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780

      • NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN

  • ProViz

    • Quadro Kxxx series

      • Quadro 410/420

      • Quadro K600/620

      • Quadro K[1/2/4]200

      • Quadro K2000D

      • Quadro K[2/4/5]000

    • Quadro Kx000M series

      • Quadro K[1/2/3/4/5]000M

    • Quadro Kx100M series

      • Quadro K500M

      • Quadro K[1/2/3/4/5]100M

  • Datacenter

    • GRID K520 (AWS EC2 g2 instance)

    • Tesla K10

Miscellaneous Requirements

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8

  • Microsoft ASP.NET Core Runtime 8.0

  • Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime 8.0

  • Microsoft .NET Runtime 8.0

  • Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x64 Redistributable

  • OpenCL 1.2

  • OpenGL 4.6

  • Windows Media Player is required for viewing the videos that appear on the Ansys Discovery Welcome Screen

Prerequisite Requirement Checking and Reporting

Upon launching Discovery after installation, prerequisite checking occurs automatically to ensure there are no installation issues that may lead to unexpected behaviors or failures. The results of these checks are reported in several ways:

  • When you launch Discovery, a dialog box reports any missing or out-of-date prerequisites that were identified.

  • Results of the prerequisite checks are captured in the Discovery application log.

  • The SID reports any missing or out-of-date prerequisites that were identified when Discovery was launched, as well as results concerning prerequisite checking specific to the Explore and Refine stages.

Reporting Issues to Ansys Customer Support

If you encounter issues running Discovery, follow this procedure:

  1. Open the Windows command prompt as administrator.

  2. Run this command:

    "<ansys-install-location>/Framework/bin/Win64/Ans.DriverSetup.exe" --check-system-compatibility

  3. Capture the output of the command and include it, along with the Discovery application log, when contacting Ansys customer support.