Learning Forum

[Austin Glover]

I'm running into some problems installing and running ansys. Windows 10 is the only platform that the student package is supported on, but there are no more supported windows 10 for ARM images. Only windows 11 for ARM. I'm running windows 11 on parallels and completed the installation using the instructions from this video.

. Unfortunately, when I try to run a very simple test program in ansys mechanical, I get the following issue. Is this something that people recognize? Could this be caused by running in windows 11? 

[Rob]

We've been testing Win11 internally with minimal issues other than a few hiccups finding DOS prompts and the like. It's possible there's something missing in the Mac interaction stuff as I suspect they didn't expect you to need compilers. 2023R1 is due "soon", so that might fix the issue as that's (I think) supported on Win11. 

[Austin Glover]

Hi Rob,

I downloaded 2023 R1 recently, and it has the same error.

 

At a high level, is ANSYS just not supported for ARM based macbooks? What is your recomendation for someone who has a ARM laptop who want to use ansys? 

 

[Austin Glover]

The support document says to:

 

 

But there's no document where they are pointing. 

[Rob]

I'll check. That document may not yet be on the system as we're still adding 2023R1 to the system. Note, the document mentions it's a small number of products so you may find it's not the one you're after. 

[Marie Elieza Bagus]

Has anyone found a solution to this? I am having an issue on the OpenGL 4.5 requirement. Same with OP, I am using Parallels on Win11 ARM.

[Rob]

Here's the ARM document, https://www.ansys.com/content/dam/it-solutions/platform-support/arm-64-processor-support-announcement-january-2023.pdf 

[Marie Elieza Bagus]

So does this mean I cannot run other Ansys products aside from Fluent and Redhawk?

[George Karnos]

That is correct.
Ansys Products, other than mentioned are not supported on the ARM CPU.
Also, the ones mentioned are only supported on the Operating Systems listed. (Linux)

[Akthem Rehab]

 

 

I used the same video to install ansys on my M2 mac. Fluent is working fine so far. I get the same error message though when I try to launch APDL and also when I try to solve in mechanical. Would you please advise whether this is a mac silicon compatability issue? If so, any expectations to having it resolved in the near future? And if it should work fine on mac, what possibly could I have done wrong?

 

 

[Rob]

Strictly speaking we don't support any Mac installation. Some of the software will work with the emulators, but as we don't test (or compile for) Mac OS it's difficult to say what will happen with the various codes & updates, Mac updates and emulator updates.  The Student code is Windows only, the "full" version(s) are Windows (10 & 11) and several flavours of Linux/Unix.  

https://www.ansys.com/it-solutions/platform-support  covers what is supported. 

[carrilho]

I had this issue as well, but ANSYS engineers were able to fix it. They installed various MS Visual C++ Redistributable files starting with version 2010 for both x64 and x86 systems. Installing the last versions of the MS Visual C++ Redistributable files as shown in the above youtube video is not enough. The ANSYS engineers also unistalled and reinstalled my ANSYS package, deleting hidden files, etc. I don't remember all the steps, but it seems that we need to unistall everything, including the MS Visual C++ Redistributable files, reboot, and reinstall the programs, one by one, starting with the 2010 MS Visual C++ Redistributable file, reboot, and then install ANSYS. My ANSYS Mechanical and APDL is running just fine on my 2021 Apple M1 Max through Parallels.

[Santiago]

Hello Leo, by any chance do you remember the contact name? I have the same issue, followed your instructions and mechanical still won't run. Thanks!

[Santiago]

 

Also any follow up from Ansys would be much appreciated

 

[Leo Carrilho]

Our technical support is provided by Ozen Engineering. They could not repeat the process on another Mac M1. So, this continues to be an issue.

[Santiago]

Thank you very much, I'll keep an eye open hoping it will eventually get solved, it's really a great thing to be able to use simulation software through parallels not to be having to carry 2 laptops ;), Ansys mechanical would be a wonderful addition.

[Austin Glover]

It's very funny that all the more modern software runs (space claim, workbench, the gui and application for mechanical) until you acutally try to solve, then some fortran component tries to run, and is making some invalid assumptions about the underlying hardware, and the whole thing crashes. It's amazing that the actual solving is still being handled by something written in fortran. If it's made it this long in the software, I don't have much hope for it being updated any time soon. 

Even though i'm familiar with Ansys and would like to use it, I'm just going to find a different piece of software that works on a virtual machine and use that instead. 

If anyone has an offical patch or debug process for this, I would appreciate if they could post it here. 

I'm interested what Anysis's long term plan is for this? Apple computers are all Mx from here on out and very popular with young people and therefore common in education. 

[Rob]

GUI side is fairly easy, it's when you solve that all of the maths, numerical methods etc kick in. So it's not all that surprising that the emulators hold all the graphics stuff but not enough of the other libraries. 

Going to the Mac OS bit. We do monitor what's used in the world, but other than some laptops I don't see Mac OS anywhere. The bulk of Ansys compute is done on clusters, historically on UNIX/Linux and, more recently, Windows. I also teach at a University for a session most years, out of 50-100 students I rarely see more than 1-2 with Macs: that may be a UK bias but I suspect not. What you may find is the Linux builds can run on Mac, but I've never known anyone try it, and Student isn't built for Linux.  If any of this changes then Ansys will review the supported platforms. When I bought my first PC Mac OS didn't have a Fortran compiler available, and at nearly twice the price for the hardware it meant engineering students went towards desktop PC. 

As a question, how many CAD packages work well on Mac, and how many of the latest PC games run well on first release? 

 

 

 

 

[Santiago]

 

Hi Rob,

Thank you very much for the follow up, and yes, you’re correct most of the simulation tools for solid mechanics of fluid dynamics works on Windows or Linux and given the somewhat steep price tag of a mac a laptop, some win laptop can offer more than enough power for a fairer price. In my experience, a good laptop can still solve fairly complex problems without the need of a cluster. For many reasons I have had macs as my personal computers for a long time, it was just recently with the advent of apple silicon that I saw the opportunity not carry around 2 laptops, it might still be a niche for sure, but it does offer some very attractive advantages for me.

I’m a long Abaqus user and I wanted to learn and switch as much as possible to Ansys, but the fact I cannot run mechanical really puts a spoke on my wheel. Abaqus runs straight out of the box on the same windows 11 install where I tried to install Ansys to no avail. It runs smooth and quite decent speeds, from my experience with automotive problems a very good capable laptop could tackle most of my problems before needing to go to bigger machines, I like mobility and flexibility, this allows me to be able to work directly on my laptop from anywhere.

I tried both Win 11 Home and Pro on parallels for the Ansys install and the steps provided Leo Carrilho where they got one machine working (same installs where Abaqus and Hyperworks work).

It’s not a huge deal and if Ansys does not see the potential I’m sure the business case is poor, this means tough break for me and wait it out and postpone my transition.

If anything changes I would appreciate you dropping a line or 2, thank you.

 

[Rob]

Check when 2023R2 comes out, as I mentioned earlier you may get lucky with the library calls. 

[Santiago]

Hello,

Has anyone had any luck with Mechanical in 2023R2, I have again tried all of the above from scratch and a few times and mechanical still won't run. I just need to know to let this go for a while, thanks!

[Mokshanand Gopineedi]

 

---

Hello,

I am encountering a similar issue while running ANSYS 2023 R2 on Windows 11 via Parallels on my M2 MacBook Pro. Fluent operates without any problems, but the geometry, surfaces, and other elements remain invisible even after updating in Design Modeler. On the contrary, Static Structural proves to be challenging; the model section throws an error related to my OpenGL version (4.1 metal) and indicates it requires version 4.5.

I am curious if there exists an older version of ANSYS, such as the widely used 18.1, that is compatible with OpenGL 4.1. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the system requirements for version 18.1, including its OpenGL specifications.

Is there an earlier version of ANSYS that supports OpenGL 4.1, which might potentially resolve most of our issues?

Thank you.

 

[Rob]

Any information will be here   https://www.ansys.com/it-solutions/platform-support/previous-releases    Note, Student only exists for current and upto two previous releases. However, older versions of Ansys may not work well on Win11, so you may just find some new problems trying an older version. 

[Philippe TRAORE]

It seems Ansys 2023R2 has some problems with M1 Mac + Parallel Desktop + Windows 11 when using Design Modeler with 3D objetc who are not displayed correctly. What should we do to correct this. Is it a problem from OpenGL or from MS Visual C++ Redistributable ?

[Philippe TRAORE]

I have updated McOS to Sonoma 14.1.2  and Parallel Desktop V19 and now the problem is solved !

[Rob]

Thank you for posting a resolution - that will help others who want to use Mac. 

[Leo Carrilho]

In my case, it did not. ANSYS APDL won't run and Workbench complains about OpenGL < 5.