Essential Information about Flux 2021

Essential information about Flux 2021
In order to use the version HWU, you need:
  • HW license file Version 21.0
  • License Manager-LMX Version 14.5.3
Flux 2021 is available for Windows and Linux OS:
  • Windows 10 Professional
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS 8.2
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1

The Linux version is qualified with the Gnome Classic with X11 display server. It is highly advisable to use the Gnome Classic with X11 display server to run Flux on Linux.

Flux 2021 takes into account the feedback from several users, and around 30 customer issues have been fixed in this version.
The Dynamic memory management already available via an option in the Supervisor in beta version in Flux 2020.1, is now in standard version in Flux 2021. see more details
Warning: The dynamic memory working process (with memory allocation/releasing) has a light impact on the performances. If you notice an abnormal execution time with dynamic memory (and not in static memory), you can contact the support (code optimizations are possible). The default memory mode is still set to User but we encourage you to use the Dynamic mode extensively and give us feedback. We plan to continue working on the robustness an the performance of the dynamic memory, our goal being to have the Dynamic mode by default for the next Flux 2021.1 release.
Warning: All Flux algorithms work now with dynamic memory, except Delaunay mesher (not default mesher). Only MeshGems mesher is available in Dynamic memory. If user wants to use specifically Delaunay, he has to switch to User (or static) memory in supervisor options.
Distributed computing with MPI is available in Flux for Windows and Linux and can be used with PBS. However, qualification on Windows cluster connected with InfiniBand has not been done and Linux clusters are highly recommended for parallel computing.

It is now possible to install Flux on Windows or Linux without administrator rights with limited functionalities.
About CDE Licensing: Before using CDE, please check that the environment variable for the license: ALTAIR_LICENSE_PATH is set as system environment variable.

Warning: If ALTAIR_LICENSE_PATH is set as user environment variable only, CDE will fail. For CDE to work properly, ALTAIR_LICENSE_PATH environment variable must be set as system environment variable.

The "CDE" and "CSS" services do not start if there are too many files in the root of the %TEMP% directory. Please if it is the case, clean this directory, reboot and launch the batch script:

Bin\prg\win64\Active_Distributed_Computation_and_API.bat

About the CDE/CSS user temporary directory %TEMP%:

(The user temporary directory is by default: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp)

If there are a lot of files in the user temporary directory (according to our tests, "a lot" means more than 50 000 files, but it could be lower or higher on your computer), then CSS and CDE services will not start. In order to fix this issue, please follow the procedure described below:
  1. Delete unnecessary temporary files, for instance:
    • Using Windows Storage Sense
    • Using another tool
    • Manually…
  2. Restart your computer
  3. Reinstall CSS and CDE:

    Run as administrator the executable file: Active_Distributed_Computation_and_API.bat

    This file is located in the directory: <Installation Directory>\flux\Flux\Bin\prg\win64

Minimum memory required:
  • For Flux 2D: 8 GB of RAM
  • For Flux 3D, Skew and PEEC: 12 GB of RAM