Sesam General

Sesam Input Interface File

Sesam Input Interface File.Covering the files T#.FEM and L#.FEM.

Sesam Results Interface File

Sesam results Interface File.Covering the files R#.SIF and G#.SIF.

Export/import of stiffness and mass matrices

This is a guide in how to export/import stiffness and mass matrices in Sesam, using Sestra and Presel. The attached .zip file contains a document that is outlining the procedure, along with relevant input files to set up this process using Sesam Manager.

Please see the attached document ExportImportMatrices_FAQ.

How to script the installation of Sesam?

To script the installation of Sesam 2011 DVD and all its components, please follow the guidelines in the attachment.

Please see the attached document 00003466 How to script the installation of Sesam.

SESAM: Minimum and recommended hardware configuration

Below are the minimum and recommended hardware configurations as described in the Sesam DVD 2014 release notes.

SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS

The Sesam 2014 Release has been tested on the following operating systems:

Windows XP, 32 and 64 bit operating systems; Service Pack 3 is required for XP 32bit.
Windows 7, 32 and 64 bit operating systems
Windows 8.1, 64 bit operating systems. Notice that the programs marked with “Non-maintained” in Chapter 8 have not been tested on Windows 8.1

We strongly recommend the use of computers that support and have installed 64 bit versions of the windows operative systems.

End of support for Windows XP

Microsoft has announced that official support for XP ended on the 8th April 2014. Windows XP has been superseded by other versions of the Windows operating system, most recently Windows 8.1.

Following the end of official support by Microsoft, all future versions of Sesam, Nauticus Hull and Nauticus Machinery will not support XP after 1st October 2014.

Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are primarily based on 64bit technology. This means that all new releases of Sesam, Nauticus Hull and Nauticus Machinery will support Win7 and Win 8 on 64bit platforms after 1st October 2014.

We acknowledge that this change will potentially be significant for some of our customers. Please contact us on software.support@dnv.com if you have questions or comments.

RECOMMENDED HARDWARE CONFIGURATION

Below are two recommendations on hardware as well as more details on graphics drivers that should be used together with GeniE.

Minimum hardware recommendation

This configuration is typical for tasks normally limited to beam jacket and topside design analyses including wave and pile/soil analysis. The configuration is also applicable when making super-elements built up of shell and beams. Furthermore, hydrostatic and smaller hydrodynamic analysis (frequency domain) can also be carried out.

Graphic card: Open GL compatible. May be integrated with processor (e.g. Intel HD). If not OpenGL support, use DX9 as provided in the Sesam installation
Memory: 2 GB
Processor: 1.75 GHz – Dual core
Storage: 100 GB
Display: 17” supporting 1280x1024, alternatively laptop 15” supporting 1280x1024
64-bit version of Windows operative system

Preferred hardware recommendation

This configuration should be used for all other tasks than mentioned above.

Graphic card: Separate OpenGL compatible graphics card (NVIDIA or ATI) with 512MB graphics memory. If not OpenGL support, use DX9 as provided in the Sesam installation
Memory: 4 GB
Processor: 3.0 GHz
Storage: 250 GB
Display: 24” supporting 1920x1200 (or-1080), alternatively laptop 17” supporting 1920x1200 (or-1080)
64-bit version of Windows operating system

Graphics drivers for GeniE

The graphics driver is the system level software provided by your Graphics Card supplier (most likely Intel, NVIDIA or ATI) to interface between Windows and the GPU. This is supplied with your operating system or graphics card.

The GeniE graphics driver is the software used by GeniE to interface with the graphics driver defined above and is supplied with GeniE.

Use of DX9

DirectX 9.0 (DX9) is the preferred GeniE graphics driver and it is the default on installation.

DirectX 9.0c Runtime version 9.27.1734 distributed on June 2010 or a later version of DirectX 9 must be installed on your system. The Sesam installer will install DirectX 9.0c.

Note that although Windows 7 and 8 come with DirectX pre-installed, GeniE uses extra components and so DirectX must be explicitly installed using the Sesam installer or from the Microsoft website.

The GeniE DX9 driver is supported on any DirectX 9.0 compliant graphics hardware (Microsoft Shader Model 3) with the latest vendor-supplied drivers.

DirectX 9.0c was first released in August 2004 so older systems will not support the DX9 driver.

Use of OpenGL

GeniE supports two different OpenGL drivers. The standard GeniE OpenGL driver (“OpenGL”) is a legacy driver that attempts to support all OpenGL 1.1 hardware.

The GeniE OpenGL2 driver (“OpenGL2”) is a shader-based driver that is offered as an alternative should a user encounter problems with other drivers. It attempts to support all OpenGL 2.0+ hardware.

Driver Fallback/OpenGL on Intel GPUs

Each time a workspace is opened GeniE detects if there are any problems reported with the current GeniE driver and if so falls back to another GeniE driver until eventually software rendering is used. The word ‘Fallback’ will be shown in the title bar if this has happened.

Due to problems with Intel’s graphics drivers GeniE also attempts to detect if it is being run on an Intel GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) and if so it falls back to the GeniE DX9 driver if possible or to the GeniE OpenGL Software driver. The latter provides no GPU hardware acceleration and so will be slow for large graphical datasets.

This test is done each time a workspace is opened so that on hybrid systems where an Intel GPU is paired with NVIDIA or ATI, GeniE will run the driver specified in the GeniE options on NVIDIA or ATI card, but will fall back if a workspace is opened with the Intel GPU active.

When to consider upgrading your graphics driver

It is strongly advised you upgrade your graphics driver if

you are using an old system (>3 years) and have not upgraded the driver
you have installed Windows 8 on hardware introduced prior to Windows 8
you encounter graphics problems within GeniE

Although it is perhaps stating the obvious, if you have no graphics problems using GeniE there is no need to upgrade your graphics driver. It is always possible that a newer version of a driver may have bugs not in your current version.

Upgrading the graphics driver is usually best done via the Display Adapter properties dialog in Windows Device Manager.