System Requirements for Carlson’s CAD-based Products

Note: Carlson products installed on top of the CAD products of IntelliCAD or AutoCAD, are subject to the same requirements as the CAD engine itself. Please follow the requirements for the CAD platform listed below and allow an additional 750 MB of hard-drive space for the Carlson application.

Carlson 2016 with IntelliCAD 8.1 and later

  • Compatible with 32 or 64 bit Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10
  • For hardware requirements, see Carlson 2013-2015* below

Carlson 2013-2015* with IntelliCAD 7.2 and later

*Starting with 2013 build 130120

Intel® Pentium® 4 or comparable (minimum), Intel i7 or at least Intel i5 or comparable (recommended). Due to the variety of processors on the market, one can use cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php to do comparative analysis.

  • 32-bit Windows 7-8.1: 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM minimum for, 4 GB recommended.
  • 64-bit Windows 7-8.1: 2 GB of RAM minimum for, 8+ GB recommended.
  • Windows Vista: 1 GB of RAM minimum, 4 GB recommended.
  • Windows XP: 512 megabytes (MB) of RAM minimum, 2 GB recommended.

Graphics card compatible with OpenGL Version 1.4 or higher. Recommended are desktop graphics level discrete (not integrated cards like Intel HD) graphics cards, preferably Nvidia brand due to their more consistent driver support. Powerful gaming cards are not required and probably would not provide as much benefit as investment in more memory or better CPU.

Carlson 2012 and earlier with IntelliCAD 7.1 and 6.x based products

  • Windows® XP, Windows® Vista, Windows® 7
  • Intel Pentium® or more powerful processor
  • 64-bit machines are supported, but application itself is 32-bit
  • 1 GB RAM (minimum), 4 GB recommended (for complex drawings)
  • 400 MB of free hard disk space (1.2 GB Total, see Note above)

Learn more information about IntelliCAD.

AutoCAD®

Please visit the AutoCAD System Requirements page for current specifications which are subject to change without advance notice.

Please visit the Autodesk summary of the Operating system compatibility for AutoCAD (Autodesk Bulletin TS14078105) for historical references between AutoCAD and its supported operating system(s).

Please see Note above for hard disk space requirements for the Carlson application.

Embedded AutoCAD® OEM Engine

Carlson solutions based on AutoCAD 2013 Embedded

Takeoff R6, R7, R8 / Survey OEM 2013, 2014, 2015

Please note the CPU compatibility below: older AMD CPUs like Athlon XP+ do not support SSE2 technology and can not run Embedded AutoCAD 2013 products.

  • Windows® 8 Standard, Enterprise, or Professional edition (requires installation of AutoCAD LT 2013 Service Pack 2); Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium edition (SP3 or later) with an Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ dual-core processor, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology.

Or

  • Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Home edition (SP3 or later) with an Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
  • 1 GB RAM (minimum), 8 GB (recommended)
  • 1.4 GB free disk space for installation
  • 1,024 x 768 VGA display with true color
  • Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
  • Install from download or DVD

Carlson solutions based on AutoCAD 2010 Embedded

Takeoff R4, R5 / Survey OEM 2010, 2011, 2012

Please note the CPU compatibility below: older AMD CPUs like Athlon XP+ do not support SSE2 technology and can not run Embedded AutoCAD 2010 products.

  • Microsoft Windows 7, or,
  • Windows Vista, SP1 or later (Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, Home Premium) operating system, with,
  • Intel Pentium 4 processor or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 3.0 GHz or greater with SSE2 technology
  • 1 GB RAM (minimum), 8 GB (recommended)
  • 850 MB free disk space for installation
  • 1024 x 768 VGA display with true color
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 web browser or later
  • DVD drive

Or

  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Home Edition operating system (SP2 or later), with,
  • Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or greater with SSE2 technology
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 850 MB free disk space for installation
  • 1024 x 768 VGA display with true color
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 web browser or later
  • DVD drive

Carlson solutions based on AutoCAD 2007 Embedded

Takeoff R2, R3 / Survey OEM 2007, 2008, 2009
  • Microsoft Windows 7, or,
  • Windows Vista, or,
  • Windows XP Home or Professional SP1 or better, or,
  • Windows XP for Tablet PC SP2, or,
  • Windows 2000 SP3 or better
  • Pentium III 800 minimum, Intel Pentium IV recommended
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 550 MB free disk space for installation
  • 1024 x 768 with True Color
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or higher
  • CD-ROM drive
  • Mouse, trackball, or compatible pointing device

Carlson solutions based on AutoCAD 2004 Embedded

Takeoff R1 / Survey OEM 2004, 2005, 2006
  • Microsoft Windows XP (Professional, Home Edition, or Tablet PC Edition), or,
  • Windows 2000, or Windows NT 4.0 (SP6a or later)
  • Pentium III 800 minimum, Intel Pentium IV recommended
  • 256 MB RAM
  • 300 MB free disk space for installation
  • 1024 x 768 VGA with true color (minimum)
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
  • Mouse, trackball, or compatible pointing device
  • CD-ROM drive