Houdini 12 System Requirements
Operating System
Windows: Requires Windows 7 (32 or 64 bit) or Windows 8 (32 or 64 bit)

Win 8 users with geforce cards should not use driver 310 or 314(houdini will hang). Nvidia has fixed this issue and it's currently available in their 320 beta driver.

Mac OS X: Requires 64-bit Intel-based Mac with OS X 10.6, OSX 10.7, or OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

Linux:

Ubuntu 9.04+ (32 and 64-bit)

Debian 5.0+ (32 and 64-bit)

RHEL 5-6 (32 and 64-bit)

Fedora Core 7+ (32 and 64-bit)

Open SUSE 10.2+ (32 and 64-bit)

Note: gcc 4.1 32-bit is no longer supported

All platforms require administrator privileges to install.
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Memory
4 GB required
64bit Operating System recommended
8 GB or higher and 64bit strongly recommended for fluid simulations
Multiprocessor systems should be configured with additional RAM[/COLOR]

Processor
Recent generation 32 or 64-bit AMD or Intel processor (requires SSE or higher)
64-bit strongly recommended
Houdini supports MMX and Streaming SIMD (SSE2) where present

Disk Space
1GB required for installation

Input Devices
3 Button mouse required
Scroll wheel used where present
Wacom tablet recommended for Houdini's brush-based tools


Graphics Card
It is VERY important that you install the latest driver for your graphics card. Failing to do so may result in display issues and/or slow performance.
Workstation-class OpenGL graphics cards, such as NVidia Quadro and ATI Fire Pro, are required for professional use in production.
The viewport is now based on OpenGL 3.2 It is a modern shader-based renderer for OpenGL 3 and 4 hardware, with additional features such as selection highlighting and geometry shaders. It has the ability to handle large data sets, and is now the default Scene Renderer. You can change the scene renderer in the Main Preferences.
Depending on your graphics card and driver, some of the advanced display options may not be available.
OpenGL 3.2 and OpenCL is not yet supported on OSX. It will be supported once Apple updates their drivers.
Non-workstation cards, such as GeForce, Radeon, and Intel integrated graphics can be used at your own risk. They may be used for learning and personal use but are not supported: you may experience display problems, slow performance, and the software may exit unexpectedly.
Graphic Card drivers: NVidia: 290 or higher, ATI: FirePro 9.892.8.1 or higher.
Minimum resolution: 1024 x 768; Recommended resolution: 1920 x 1200 (widescreen).
1GB VRAM or more is strongly recommended. Less than 1GB of VRAM may result in display errors.
1.5GB VRAM or higher required for dual displays or single displays greater than 1920x1080.
Minimum OpenGL version of 2.0; recommended OpenGL version 3.2.
Color depth of 32-bit (“true color”) required.
Hardware-accelerated OpenGL required for optimum performance.
Performance may suffer with complex scenes on non-workstation graphics cards and on laptops.
Houdini does not require support for Direct3D (all viewports and interfaces use OpenGL).
We don't recommend any specific computer manufacturer. As long as your machine has the recommended RAM, CPU, graphics card, and VRAM, it should be acceptable for use.


GPU Acceleration And OpenCL
On certain graphics cards, Houdini can use the GPU to dramatically increase the performance and speed of your Pyro FX and Fluid simulations.
In order to take advantage of this capability, you'll need a GPU capable of supporting OpenCL. On the Nvidia side, that would be a Tesla or a Quadro x000 series (non-FX Quadro; 600,2000,4000,5000,6000) or a GEForce 400 or 500 series. For AMD, you need a FirePro card (not FireGL) or a Radeon 5000, 6000, or 7000 series GPU. Intel's graphics are currently not able to support OpenCL, but they do have a CPU-oriented CL library which may work with Houdini in the future.
The amount of VRAM your GPU has access to will limit the size of simulation that you can run on it. 2-3GB + is ideal for larger simulations.
GPU acceleration for H12 currently does NOT make use of multiple OpenCL devices (i.e. two or more graphics cards) but this may change at a future date.

3rd Party Software Dependencies
Scripting - Python 2.5 - 2.5.4, Python 2.6 - 2.6.4, XML2 2.7.6
Dynamic Solvers - Bullet 2.77, ODE 0.10.1
Data Exchange - FBX 1.0, Collada 1.4.1, Alembic 1.0.5, Open EXR 1.7

Other
Sound card and speakers/headset required for audio
Class C network (TCP/IP) recommended for local access licenses
Network support required for offline simulation, batch processing and rendering
Internet browser required for connection to www.sidefx.com (Houdini Exchange and Forum)
Video encoder required for creating AVI/QT/etc.