Minimum system requirements for GCAM

GCAM developers frequenty receive questions on what type of computer is required to run the model. In general, the model will run in a reasonable amount of time (10-20 min) on most personal computers. Some requirements have increased with the release of GCAM 3.0, please see below.

Hardware Requirements

At least 4 GB of RAM
5GB of free disk space (model output databases can quickly become large files)

Software Requirements

A 64-bit operating system such as:
- Windows 7
- Mac OS X (10.5 or greater recommended)
- Linux
64-bit Java

Additionally, Windows users will need to download the Visual Studio 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) available at: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=14632. An error saying the program can't start because MSVCR100.dll is missing from your computer is indicative of this software not being installed.

Recommended Software

Additional software is recommend to make working with model files easier.

XML Viewer

Data is provided to the model as XML files. While these files can be viewed in web browsers or text editors, a dedicated xml viewer that can provide a tree view of the file is recommed. On Windows, XML Marker (http://www.symbolclick.com) is one option. A cross-platform alternative is Oxygen XML Author (http://www.oxygenxml.com/)

Spreadsheet Application

Direct XML data file creation is possible, but it is easier to generate a table as a CSV. The ModelInterface (included with the GCAM distribution) can convert a CSV to an XML file, and the original CSV files are included in the “input” directory of the GCAM Main_User_Workspace folder. GCAM developers typically use Microsoft Excel, although other alternatives do exist.

C++ Editor

For viewing model code, the recommended software on Windows and Mac would be Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Express Edition 2010 or Apple Xcode. This is less important, as GCAM is a flexible model and most changes can be accomplished with data provided in CSV (and subsequently XML) files.