Victor Westmann and I have decided Inkscape needs to give some minimum hardware requirements, in the interest of transparency. But we have 2 problems.
1 -- We aren't positive about the exact levels that we should give. And we thought we might be able to gather some user experience by making sort of a survey in the forum.
Please let us know if you agree with this or not, and please explain your rationale and reasons. Give examples that might support your point of view. See the attached ODT file.
2 -- The 2nd problem is mostly brynn's. I have not really installed any new software in a long time, and have not noticed that these hardware requirements seem to have changed in the last 5 to 10 years.
Instead of only minimum requirements, now we also apparently have Recommended requirements (and sometimes even "Optimal"). To me, it looks a lot like some hardware manufacturers have gotten into the act, and using software to tangentially sell their hardware.
Plus, I don't like the idea of suggesting Inkscape will run all that much better on the highest level hardware from the lowest. (some better for sure, but not as much as these levels would imply) So in a compromise, we've dropped the optimum level.
Also, for the moment, I've suggested changing "Minimum" and "Recommended" to "Minimum Acceptable" and "Acceptable". (I could also go with "Bare Minimum" and "Minimum".) I just don't want to get into the business of "recommending" hardware, or implying that Inkscape runs significantly better on one system than another. A little better, sure.
If someone can convince me otherwise, please do. I can see minimum requirements are absolutely a must. But I can't see Optimal as anything but selling unneeded hardware. If someone WANTS a high def screen, they can buy one. But implying that Inkscape will run better with one -- that's an unreachable stretch for me.
(I suspect the reason Inkscape has never had hardware requirements is because no has time to deal with it. But I don't really know. If there is any other reason, developers, please chime in!)
Thank you for bringing this discussion to the forum here! We really need to know users opinion on this one.
I particularly see a lot of value in recommending X, Y and Z specification (being X amount of RAM, Y amount of hard drive space, and Z processors) because users will already know if their machine is good/bad to run a copy of Inkscape.
And this makes all the difference even for users that are buying a new computer. Knowing this table gives them power to choose a computer that will run really well with Inkscape. This has nothing to do with hardware vendors. It has to do with transparency. Being open. Being honest. And helping people our software more, and better.
As I've said, I see hard drive space is totally irrelevant. I can't imagine any computer is sold these days without enough space for Inkscape to be installed.
I'm totally happy with minimum requirements, because I have seen messages in forums asking about it. I'm ok if we want to have a 2nd column, to indicate that on bigger systems, you can work on larger documents, and what kind of system that would be.
But I'm not ok calling it "recommended", because that's too much like promoting hardware, which is not our job.
The reason I hesitate about that, is because of the messages I've seen in forums. "I'm getting a new computer and I need to know what Inkscape requires, so I get a big enough system." If we told them they needed a 20 core hard drive with 50 gb of ram, that's what they would get. And I don't feel good about that, especially since Inkscape does not need that to run ok.
But if we make the 2nd column something reasonable, AND we can quantify that in some way, I would be ok. My biggest problem is not knowing how to quantify the difference between the 2 columns. I can't think of any way to do that. That's partly why we wanted to try and gather some user experience.
So for example. The last time you got a new computer, did you notice any improvement in how Inkscape works? The ability to work on larger files might be noticed. Or you might have noticed using Trace Bitmap went faster. If you noticed something like that, please tell us what you noticed, and the type of hardware you had on the old and new computer. If you went to a different operating system, we can't use your experience. We have to compare to the same operating system.
The last time I noticed any difference was going from Windows XP 32-bit, with 2 gb ram (don't remember processor) to Windows 7 64-bit with 4 gb ram, Intel i7 processor. I could work on larger files, and almost never crash (Inkscape crashed all the time, on the old desktop). But I didn't notice any difference going up to 8 gb ram and same processor, in my last new computer.
Ah, Inkscape runs on every computer I have used.. ever. Minimum could be a 32 bit computer, running an older Inkscape. So I agree with Maren. I think the one thing that slows Inkscape down, is something in the program. When you use a file with many paths. That is something that a faster computer does not solve.
The one thing that really speeds it up, is the multi threading/core setting in the preferences. More threads= faster rendering.
But although I said to Inkscape it could use all the resources of my pc, it doesn't do that. In reality my superest-pc (12 GB RAM, 4 core, 8 threads) doesn't use more than 4 GB, although I am pushing Inkscape really hard. And only 15% of the processor strength is being used..
I am not sure what happens with Inkscape 1.0. In my memory it started up a lot faster. But I cannot test that out right now.
Inkscape Project News, Announcements writing hardware requirements
Inkscape.org
Hi Friends,
Victor Westmann and I have decided Inkscape needs to give some minimum hardware requirements, in the interest of transparency. But we have 2 problems.
1 -- We aren't positive about the exact levels that we should give. And we thought we might be able to gather some user experience by making sort of a survey in the forum.
Please let us know if you agree with this or not, and please explain your rationale and reasons. Give examples that might support your point of view. See the attached ODT file.
2 -- The 2nd problem is mostly brynn's. I have not really installed any new software in a long time, and have not noticed that these hardware requirements seem to have changed in the last 5 to 10 years.
Instead of only minimum requirements, now we also apparently have Recommended requirements (and sometimes even "Optimal"). To me, it looks a lot like some hardware manufacturers have gotten into the act, and using software to tangentially sell their hardware.
Plus, I don't like the idea of suggesting Inkscape will run all that much better on the highest level hardware from the lowest. (some better for sure, but not as much as these levels would imply) So in a compromise, we've dropped the optimum level.
Also, for the moment, I've suggested changing "Minimum" and "Recommended" to "Minimum Acceptable" and "Acceptable". (I could also go with "Bare Minimum" and "Minimum".) I just don't want to get into the business of "recommending" hardware, or implying that Inkscape runs significantly better on one system than another. A little better, sure.
If someone can convince me otherwise, please do. I can see minimum requirements are absolutely a must. But I can't see Optimal as anything but selling unneeded hardware. If someone WANTS a high def screen, they can buy one. But implying that Inkscape will run better with one -- that's an unreachable stretch for me.
(I suspect the reason Inkscape has never had hardware requirements is because no has time to deal with it. But I don't really know. If there is any other reason, developers, please chime in!)
Hi Brynn,
Thank you for bringing this discussion to the forum here! We really need to know users opinion on this one.
I particularly see a lot of value in recommending X, Y and Z specification (being X amount of RAM, Y amount of hard drive space, and Z processors) because users will already know if their machine is good/bad to run a copy of Inkscape.
And this makes all the difference even for users that are buying a new computer. Knowing this table gives them power to choose a computer that will run really well with Inkscape.
This has nothing to do with hardware vendors. It has to do with transparency. Being open. Being honest. And helping people our software more, and better.
Comments are always welcome, please!
Thank you everyone.
Victor
As I've said, I see hard drive space is totally irrelevant. I can't imagine any computer is sold these days without enough space for Inkscape to be installed.
Any desktop computer that has been sold within the last 10 years is capable of running Inkscape. I don't see any reason for the hardware specs.
Unless there have been complaints about it that do not have to do with bugs that need to be fixed, in contrast to things that cannot be changed?
There is tremendous value in being open to our users. Just because some people don't need this does not mean all users don't need this.
This is not about making people buy new computers, it is about telling them if Inkscape would run well or not on their current hardware.
Thanks,
Victor
I'm totally happy with minimum requirements, because I have seen messages in forums asking about it. I'm ok if we want to have a 2nd column, to indicate that on bigger systems, you can work on larger documents, and what kind of system that would be.
But I'm not ok calling it "recommended", because that's too much like promoting hardware, which is not our job.
The reason I hesitate about that, is because of the messages I've seen in forums. "I'm getting a new computer and I need to know what Inkscape requires, so I get a big enough system." If we told them they needed a 20 core hard drive with 50 gb of ram, that's what they would get. And I don't feel good about that, especially since Inkscape does not need that to run ok.
But if we make the 2nd column something reasonable, AND we can quantify that in some way, I would be ok. My biggest problem is not knowing how to quantify the difference between the 2 columns. I can't think of any way to do that. That's partly why we wanted to try and gather some user experience.
So for example. The last time you got a new computer, did you notice any improvement in how Inkscape works? The ability to work on larger files might be noticed. Or you might have noticed using Trace Bitmap went faster. If you noticed something like that, please tell us what you noticed, and the type of hardware you had on the old and new computer. If you went to a different operating system, we can't use your experience. We have to compare to the same operating system.
The last time I noticed any difference was going from Windows XP 32-bit, with 2 gb ram (don't remember processor) to Windows 7 64-bit with 4 gb ram, Intel i7 processor. I could work on larger files, and almost never crash (Inkscape crashed all the time, on the old desktop). But I didn't notice any difference going up to 8 gb ram and same processor, in my last new computer.
Ah, Inkscape runs on every computer I have used.. ever. Minimum could be a 32 bit computer, running an older Inkscape.
So I agree with Maren.
I think the one thing that slows Inkscape down, is something in the program. When you use a file with many paths. That is something that a faster computer does not solve.
The one thing that really speeds it up, is the multi threading/core setting in the preferences. More threads= faster rendering.
But although I said to Inkscape it could use all the resources of my pc, it doesn't do that.
In reality my superest-pc (12 GB RAM, 4 core, 8 threads) doesn't use more than 4 GB, although I am pushing Inkscape really hard.
And only 15% of the processor strength is being used..
I am not sure what happens with Inkscape 1.0. In my memory it started up a lot faster. But I cannot test that out right now.