Which student software is the best to begin with? (discovery live or ansys aim student?

- July 31, 2018 at 8:19 pm
  
  kravky
  Subscriber
  
  Hello,
  
  Which one from three free student softwares would You recommend me to download first?
  
  Discovery live student or ansys aim student? What is the difference betwwen those two?
  
  i know the ansys aim student is good to start with and then maybe ansys workbench but i really dont know about discovery live
- August 1, 2018 at 3:10 am
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  The Minimum Hardware Requirements for Discovery Live state this:
  
  ANSYS Discovery Live Student relies on the latest GPU technology to provide it's computation and visual experience. To run the software, you will require:
  - Graphics Card: A dedicated NVIDIA GPU card (Quadro recommended) based on the Kepler, Maxwell or Pascal architecture. Maxwell 2000 or better strongly recommended. Most dedicated NVIDIA GPU cards produced in 2013 or later will be based on one of these architectures.
  - At least 4GB of video RAM (8GB preferred) on the GPU. Please ensure you have the latest driver for your graphics card, available from NVIDIA Driver Downloads. The Discovery Live Compatibility Utility can be used to determine if your current graphics hardware is capable of supporting ANSYS Discovery Live. Performance of Discovery Live is less dependent on machine CPU and RAM. A recent generation 64-bit CPU running Windows, and at least 4GB of RAM will be sufficient. If you do not have a graphics card that meets these specifications, the software will not run
  If you don't have an Nvidia Quadro (or better) card, then you can't run Discovery Live.
- August 1, 2018 at 11:00 am
  
  kravky
  Subscriber
  
  I do have minimum harddware requirements for Discovery live, however i wanted to know about the usage compared to ansys aim student... what are the differences between those student free ansys softwares and what is the best for start
- August 1, 2018 at 1:50 pm
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  I recommend AIM because you can expand the complexity of your models to include nonlinear effects like frictional contact. In Discovery Live, all parts are automatically bonded together, which may be okay for a quick first look and for rapidly pulling faces around. But a more accurate representation of the physical problem may require adding nonlinear effects.