User Guide
2020 Hardware & Operating
System Recommendations
cmgl.ca #FutureOfSimulation
20.CMG.06
Important Notice .......................................................................................................................................... 2
Hyper-Threading Recommendation ........................................................................................................... 2
System Recommendations ......................................................................................................................... 3
Recommended Configuration for 2-Socket Workstation ............................................................................ 3
Recommended Configuration for 2-Socket Server .................................................................................... 4
Recommended Configuration for 4-Socket Server .................................................................................... 5
Model Centric Recommendations .............................................................................................................. 6
Minimum Hardware or Laptop .................................................................................................................... 6
Recommended Hardware .......................................................................................................................... 6
Recommended Hardware for Simulation of Models Greater than 250,000 Active Blocks ........................ 6
Recommended Hardware for Model Visualization ..................................................................................... 6
Technical Assistance ................................................................................................................................. 7
Network Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 7
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 1
CMG only supports 64-bit operating systems and hardware; customers using 32-bit systems should use
the 2012 release or older.
CMG no longer tests, ships or supports software releases on the Windows† XP operating system.
Customers using Windows XP are recommended to use the 2014 release or older.
For optimal performance, releases prior to 2018.10 recommended that hyper-threading be disabled. This
is no longer required, with the following considerations:
1. For optimal performance, a thread affinity setting should be set. (For example,
KMP_AFFINTY=compact,0 or KMP_AFFINTY=compact,1). Our testing has shown that not
employing this setting during simulation runs – via environment variable, or via job scheduler
configuration – can lead to significant performance degradation.
2. Extensive testing, using Intel processors, has shown that better performance is achieved when
hyper-threads are not used. This is now the default simulator behavior which means that the
number of threads (requested for the simulation) cannot exceed the number of physical cores,
unless the command line option ‘-htuse’ is used. GEM also allows use of keyword *HTUSE *ON in
the data file.
3. Furthermore, when the number of physical + hyper-thread cores in a machine is greater than 64,
the use of Linux_x64 executable is strongly recommended; the affinity setting is not effective (at
more than 64 cores) on numerous Windows OS variants.
4. The ‘-htuse’ command line/keyword has no effect on machines where hyper-threading is off. It
also has no effect on machines with operating systems that do not respond to thread-binding by
setting KMP_AFFINITY.
Hyper-threading effects could depend on processor type, hardware configuration and number of jobs
scheduled per node. Please consult your IT department and/or CMG support for further guidance.
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 2
Number of 2 Sockets 2 Sockets: workstations
Sockets
Processor Dual 20-Core Xeon† Gold 6148 Dual 20core Xeon† Gold 6248 2.5-
2.4Ghz, 27.6M Cache, 10.4GT/s, 3.9GHz 27.6M Cache
Turbo Boost (40 cores* total), OR
NEWER
Memory 96GB – 384GB RDIMM ECC DDR4 192GB
Memory, 2666MHz-2933MHz
All six memory channels populated for
maximum memory performance
Graphics NVIDIA† Quadro RTX4000 or greater NVIDIA† Quadro RTX4000
Card
Disk Drive 256 SSD drive or 250 GB SATA drive 256 GB SSD Drive for OS and 1TB
for OS (C:), 500 GB – 1 TB SSD or SSD drive for Data
SATA drive for Data
Operating Windows 10 Professional x64 ** Windows 10 Professional x64 **
System
* May require Parallel tokens from CMG to use all the cores in the system.
** Known performance issue on Windows 10, contact CMG for more info. May require updated simulator
version from CMG.
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 3
Number of 2 Sockets 2 Sockets: servers for CMG Software
Sockets as a Service (SaaS), CMG data
center and compute clusters
Processor Dual 20-Core Xeon† Gold 6148 Dual 20Core Xeon† Gold 6248
2.4Ghz, 27.6M Cache, 10.4GT/s, 2.5GHz, 27.6M Cache
Turbo Boost (40 cores* total), OR
NEWER
Memory 192GB – 768GB RDIMM ECC DDR4 384GB - 768GB
Memory, 2666MHz-2933MHz
All six memory channels populated for
maximum memory performance
Graphics Not Applicable; Servers not to be N/A
Card used for Visualization
Most Servers have a built in Video
Card on Motherboard and are not
configurable
Disk Drive Discuss speed and capacity
requirements with vendor
Operating Windows Server 2019 Standard Windows Server 2019 Standard
System
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 for
Skylake (64-bit)*** Cascade Lake (64-bit) ***
* May require Parallel tokens from CMG to use all the cores in the system.
*** Linux benchmarking tests show it to outperform Windows Server platforms for overall simulation run
times
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 4
Number of 4 Sockets 4 Sockets: For large models, shortest
Sockets runtimes; CMG Software as a Service
(SaaS) etc.
Processor Quad 18-Core Xeon† Gold 6154 18-cores per socket
3.0Ghz, 24.75M Cache, 10.4GT/s,
Turbo Boost (72 cores* total), OR
NEWER
Memory 384GB – 3TB RDIMM ECC DDR4 1.5TB
Memory, 2666MHz-2933MHz
All six memory channels populated for
maximum memory performance
Graphics Not Applicable; Servers not to be N/A
Card used for Visualization
Most Servers have a built in Video
Card on Motherboard and are not
configurable
Disk Drive Discuss speed and capacity
requirements with vendor
Operating Windows Server 2019 Standard Windows Server 2019 Standard
System
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 (64- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 for
bit)*** Skylake, 8.2 for Cascade Lake (64-
bit)***
* May require Parallel tokens from CMG to use all the cores in the system.
*** Linux benchmarking tests show it to outperform Windows Server platforms for overall simulation run
times
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 5
(a) Small/Medium Black Oil less than 250,000 active blocks and/or WinProp™
Intel Xeon- or equivalent AMD†-based PC, 4 GB RAM, Windows 10† 64-bit versions,
OpenGL†-capable video card.
See previous section for the recommended configuration for a 2-socket workstation
(a) IMEX™: up to 500,000 active blocks
GEM™: up to 250,000 active blocks
STARS™: up to 250,000 active blocks
One or two quad core Intel Xeons or better
16 GB RAM or more
(b) IMEX™: 500,000 to 2,000,000 active blocks
GEM™: 250,000 to 2,000,000 active blocks
STARS™: 250,000 to 2,000,000 active blocks
One or two eight core Intel Xeons or better
32 GB RAM or more
(c) IMEX™: 2,000,000 – 5,000,000 active blocks
GEM™: 2,000,000 – 5,000,000 active blocks
STARS™: 2,000,000 – 5,000,000 active blocks
2 twenty-core Intel Xeon Gold 6148 or similar
96 GB RAM or more
(d) IMEX™: More than 5,000,000 active blocks
GEM™: More than 5,000,000 active blocks
STARS™: More than 5,000,000 active blocks
4 eighteen-core Intel Xeon Gold 6154 or similar
192 GB RAM or more
Notes:
For (b), (c) and (d) below, double the RAM is recommended for larger numbers of components.
Recommendations for the number of cores to be used also depend on
Grid aspect ratio
Direction of highest transmissibility
Horizontal wells
Modelling Fractured Reservoirs
Smooth visualization of reservoir simulation results requires a video card that can handle large amounts of
data quickly, and has the rendering capabilities to support all display features. While high-end gaming
video cards may be able to do this, CMG recommends the use of an up-to-date, professional-level video
card with up-to-date drivers. The hardware and software integration of professional cards is better than
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 6
that of consumer cards and generally, drivers are updated more frequently. For this reason, CMG has
been buying cards from the NVIDIA Quadro line for its developers and support staff. Other vendors may
offer similar quality cards.
The Quadro line has lower-, middle-, and upper-tier cards. Besides processor speed, the main difference
between these cards is the amount of video memory on the card. The amount of video memory is directly
correlated to the size of the model that can be displayed. CMG is using “middle-tier” cards to display and
interact with models up to several tens of millions of cells.
Factors that influence the model size that can be displayed and manipulated include, but are not limited
to:
• Total number of grid cells
• Number of active grid cells
• Number of refinements
• Number of wells and trajectories
• Number of amalgamated cells
NOTE: OpenGL version 3.3 or higher is recommended for full support of visualization features. Integrated
Intel HD graphics cards (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th generation) may also experience some degradation in
visualization performance.
For running our visualization software through a remote setup we recommend using Windows 10 with the
latest Remote Desktop drivers to ensure smooth and consistent performance.
If you require technical assistance, or have specific questions about the hardware and operating system
recommendations which are not discussed here, please contact CMG at:
Email: support@cmgl.ca
Phone: +1.403.531.1300
In case of a Server/Client system (such as HPC cluster server where workstations submit jobs to the
cluster), CMG recommends a 1 Gigabit/sec connection on workstations, and 10 Gigabit/sec on the server.
This is important because the network speed affects the data transfer speed back and forth between the
cluster and the workstation.
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations
August 2020
™ Trademark of Computer Modelling Group Ltd. Copyright © 2020 Computer Modelling Group Ltd.
† Other company, product, and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. 20.CMG.06
Hardware & Operating System Recommendations 7
