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~ Getting the Calculix Windows build to run properly ~

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Download the Calculix Windows binary files from the Calculix website.

Set the following Windows system environment variables:

  MKL_INTERFACE_LAYER=LP64
  MKL_THREADING_LAYER=INTEL
  OMP_NUM_THREADS=(Set to desired number of cores)
  OPENBLAS_NUM_THREADS=1
  PASTIX_MIXED_PRECISION=1 (for speed)
  PASTIX_MIXED_PRECISION=0 (for accuracy)

Copy the following files to the same folder as the ccx_dynamic.exe file. The following files come from installing the Intel oneAPI MKL:

  mkl_core.2.dll
  mkl_def.2.dll
  mkl_intel_thread.2.dll
  mkl_rt.2.dll

One of the following three files can also be added, however, they don't seem to be required. Which of the three files depends on what CPU extensions your processor supports. You can test each, to see which is fastest.

  None of the following; 2 min 14 sec to solve test model (123,702 nodes, nl static analysis, 10 iterations, fixed base, centrifugal load)
                    AVX; mkl_avx.2.dll (2 min 7 sec)
                   AVX2; mkl_avx2.2.dll (1 min 55 sec)
                AVX-512; mkl_avx512.2.dll (1 min 25 sec)

Make sure to keep the Intel oneAPI toolkits up to date. After you update the toolkits, copy all of the files you needed into the ccx_dynamic.exe folder again.

Use the Calculix SOLVER= option to call one of three available solvers:

  SPOOLES (This solver requires a lot of memory for large problems)
  PARDISO (I generally get the lowest run times by using this solver. It also has the least hardware utilization)
  PASTIX (Best multi-core utilization, but not necessarily the fastest option)

Examples; SOLVER=SPOOLES, SOLVER=PARDISO, SOLVER=PASTIX

If the above command is not specified, the ccx_dynamic.exe file uses PASTIX by default.

The run times you get with the solvers seems to depend greatly on the computer hardware you have. For my budget laptop, PARDISO is the fastest solver. It also uses the hardware the most efficiently. Meaning, the power draw is the lowest. PASTIX does a great job using multi-core. However, the run times I get are longer than with PARDISO. Also, it's using the most power. SPOOLES really isn't an option for me, because it can not solve large models with a reasonable amount of RAM.

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