System requirements

This page lists recommended and minimal hardware and software requirements for UltraGrid.

Linux

Hardware

Recommended Setup:

• 64-bit CPU with at least 2 cores
  • Tested version: 2x 2-core Opteron CPUs,64-bit Ubuntu (both latest and LTS), Fedora, Debian and openSUSE
• OpenGL3 - compatible card
  • Proprietary drivers strongly recommended
  • DXT compression on GPU requires OpenGL 3.1. DXT decompress needs GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc - if use Linux and Intel graphics, please read a note here.
• JPEG compression requires a CUDA-capable NVidia GPU with compute capability >= 2.0 (eg. NVidia GeForce 4xx or newer)
• For uncompressed 1.5Gbps streams (either sending or receiving), 10GbE network interface card is needed
  • we test with PCIe Myricom 10GbE
• For SDI send/recieve capabilities, AJA, Blackmagick, Bluefish444, DELTACAST, DVS card is required
• for most recommended and tested HW configurations please refer this page

Software

You will need this software (in brackets are optional features for which you'll need it):

• X.Org and up-to-date display drivers, perferably proprietary, for OpenGL and SDL displays and modules written in GLSL such as scale, RTDXT or SWmix (Linux only)

• SDL (SDL display)

• OpenGL (OpenGL display and UG modules using GLSL)

  • GLEW library (Linux and Windows)
  • GLUT (preferably freeglut)

• DVS SDK/Blackmagic drivers/DELTACAST SDK

• NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit (JPEG)

• devel packages of these need to be installed as well

Recommended setup

To meet UltraGrid recommended, well-performing and best supported setup, we recommend following:

• most up-to-date Linux distro without full-featured desktop environment, for instance Ubuntu Server edition.
• X.org with non-compositing window manager, eg. with Openbox
• disabling Pulseaudio (and prevent it from starting, eg. not having it installed at all)
• disabling firewall
• using NVidia/AMD proprietary drivers

Recommended packages for clean install of ubuntu

apt-get install gcc     binutils make ntp openvpn nmap iperf nuttcp slurm wireshark tcpdump byobu gkermit xinit xterm openbox build-    essential autoconf automake git libtool freeglut3-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglew-dev libasound2-dev libv4l-    dev libavcodec-dev liabav-tool libavcodec-extra-53 openssh-server openssh-client mc vim vlc alsa-utils     zip rar firefox

OS X

Hardware

• Intel-based iMac, MacBook or MacPro, preferably with NVidia graphics card
• optionally 10GbE network interface card for 1.5Gbps streams (either sending or receiving)
  • we test with PCIe Myrinet 10GbE
• For sending capabilities, card supported with AV Foundation (like AJA) or other card supported natively by UltraGrid.

Software

• OS X 10.7 or later is supported, most current version is recommended
• Xcode build environment (from MacOS X install CD/DVD), if you will compile from sources
• Quictime, OpenGL, Cocoa and Carbon frameworks (usually included in any instalation)
• DeckLink/AJA driver appropriate for your card
• optionally SDL (preferably from macports)
• for more verbose list of prerequisites you can see INSTALL file in source tarball

Windows

Hardware

• 4-core x86/x64 CPU
• 8 GB RAM

Software

• at least Windows Vista
• drivers for your capture/display card (Blackmagic/DELTACAST etc.)