System requirements (2026)
Curious what's actually running under the hood when people use Simplebim. This article says 4GB RAM and DirectX 9 will get you running, but it's 2026 now.
Thinking along the lines… How much RAM is Simplebim actually able to utilize? Should we focus on single-thread or multi-thread CPU performance and does AMD vs Intel matter? What should we prefer on the GPU side (GeForce RTX, RTX A-Series, AMD Radeon RX or something else)?
Datacubist team, can you kindly share what tends to be the biggest hardware bottleneck when working with large or federated models?
We know the basics. What might be the Goldilocks spec and what might be the monster performance setup?
Comments
1 comment
The numbers mentioned in the technical requirements are minimum requirements. Simplebim will start and you can do things, but it's not going to be fast by any means.
For BIM applications like Simplebim, how well a task scales with multiple CPU cores depends heavily on the operation being performed. Some operations can be highly parallel, while others are more dependent on sequential processing. So for general use, strong single-thread performance is still important, rather than assuming that more CPU cores will automatically make everything faster. There are certainly operations that can use multiple threads, so I'd probably aim for around 8–16 strong CPU cores as a good balance for a general-purpose Simplebim workstation, rather than prioritizing a very high core count.
For RAM, I'd think of 32 GB as a reasonable starting point, 64 GB as the sensible target for serious work with large models, and 128 GB+ for genuinely very large models. More RAM doesn't necessarily make an operation faster, but once you're pushing the machine into swap territory, the performance degradation can be huge. The important thing is therefore having enough RAM for Simplebim, the system and the other applications you're running, rather than maximizing RAM for its own sake.
I wouldn't expect AMD vs Intel to be a major consideration in itself. I'd choose based on the actual CPU generation, single-core performance, cache, memory subsystem, thermals and price rather than the brand.
For the GPU, a modern discrete GPU with around 6–8 GB of VRAM should be a reasonable baseline for normal use, and you don't necessarily need a professional workstation GPU. As an example, a GeForce RTX-class card should generally make more sense on price/performance unless there's a specific professional-driver requirement for the other applications you use.
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