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The world's largest climate forecasting experiment for the 21st century.

Recommended System Requirements

Please read this page before downloading BOINC and starting climateprediction.net. Running the climateprediction.net application is quite demanding on your PC. Laptops, especially, can easily overheat if they are performing intense operations over a long period, and machines that do not have enough RAM can experience problems as they need to continuously write to disk. We don't want to cause disk crashes, so please take careful note of the technical requirements below.

If your machine is under the minimum specification, we recommend that you do not start the climateprediction.net project. If you have attached to the project, and decide that it is "over-stressing" your computer, simply "Detach" from the project. You should find other BOINC projects that are suitable for your machine.

The main requirement for participating in climateprediction.net is a certain amount of commitment. Each work unit (in this case, climate simulation) will take a few weeks to complete, depending on how fast your computer is and how much you leave it on. Incomplete runs cannot be handed on to another participant to complete.

Operating System Hardware Available Disk Memory
 
Microsoft Windows  
Windows 2000 1.6GHz 1GB minimum 256 (recommend 512)MB
Windows XP 1.6GHz 1GB minimum 256 (recommend 512)MB
Windows 2003 Server 1.6GHz 1GB minimum 256 (recommend 512)MB
 
Macintosh  
Intel Mac OS X 1.66GH 600MB 192MB
 
Linux (32-bit)  
Red Hat Linux 8.X, 9.X 1.6GHz 1GB minimum 256 (recommend 512)MB
Mandrake Linux 10.x 1.6GHz 1GB minimum 256 (recommend 512)MB
Debian Linux 3.0 1.6GHz 1GB minimum 256 (recommend 512)MB
 
Internet Connection

Any type of Internet connection (e.g. dial-up, broadband, ISDN, LAN) is suitable to
(i) download the model and
(ii) send us back the results at the end of the run.

 
Overclocking

If you are in the habit of deliberately overclocking your CPU, you will be more prone to random crashes of the model than other people.

 
Graphics Compatibility

The application graphics requires a graphics card that supports OpenGL, with the latest drivers.

 
Additional Notes

The model can only run when you have your computer switched on. Note that the extra greenhouse gas emission generated by the use of your PC is very small. However, whenever you need to switch your computer off, the simulation will be saved and will restart from the last place it reached when you next switch the computer on. You only need to connect to the internet at the beginning and, when prompted, at the end of the experiment to return data to us.
Some models will crash even if your computer meets the minimum specification.

If you have a technical question not answered by the information above, please go to the BOINC questions and problems page.

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