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System requirements for rviz and gazebo

asked 2011-09-12 22:07:45 -0600

Navam gravatar image

updated 2014-01-28 17:10:22 -0600

ngrennan gravatar image

hey guys,

I am a complete newbie at ROS (specifically for pr2) just started this week. So after the installations and having some fun with gazebo, following the tutorials i came across rviz. Now the problem i faced was when i did "rosrun rviz rviz" and added a robot model it freezes the whole system (this happens only with the robot model i can add everything else), anyways after researching these forums along with wiki's i realize its the problem with improper intel on board gpu drivers (which i have on my dell studio 1555) ----- Sooo now finally the main question --

  1. can you please specify some sys req's for a new laptop on which i can smoothly work with rviz and gazebo.
  2. Also if possible let me know which brand of laptop and stuff :D ...

Thanks guys - not just for answers to this - this forum on the whole has helped me out a lot since the past week hopefully after sometime i can return the favor by helping others.

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Because different gpu vendors have different levels of OpenGL compatibility implemented in their drivers, it is hard to know a priori if something will work out of the box. In general, we found recent nvidia's gpu and proprietary drivers to work flawlessly for gazebo and rviz.
hsu gravatar image hsu  ( 2011-09-23 06:20:37 -0600 )edit
Easiest thing to do is to post your system spec as detailed as possible, and see if anyone else has gotten things running on the same/similar system successfully. On the other hand, feel free to update the system requirements page that Dimitri mentioned in his answer if you've got something working
hsu gravatar image hsu  ( 2011-09-23 06:25:40 -0600 )edit

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answered 2011-09-13 04:37:59 -0600

DimitriProsser gravatar image

Well, I'm not sure if there is a list of system requirements for Rviz floating around, but I found a list of Gazebo System Requirements that gives you a broad overview of what kind of hardware would be needed for the more complex graphics proecessing.

As for your Rviz problem, I've searched around and found this page Rviz Troubleshooting that explains two possible causes to your problem. Either your card does not support OpenGL or you do not have the correct graphics drivers installed (or both). For a new laptop, I would bet that you'd be safe with most modern GPUs. If the GPU supports OpenGL, you're probably ok. You can get a laptop with a dedicated GPU for very little money nowadays.

If it helps, I can run Rviz on Intel Integrated GMA HD graphics in my laptop, but I also run it on other machines that have Nvidia 560M, Nvidia GTX 260, etc. I hope that helps. If not, I might be able to find some specific models for you.

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As a general statement, rviz works better with Nvidia graphics cards than other brands. Also, we do most of our development from Ubuntu linux (Lucid (10.04) or more recent), so Ubuntu is probably better supported than other distributions.
hersh gravatar image hersh  ( 2011-09-13 05:53:56 -0600 )edit
hey thanks for the reply was busy in class since morning O_O . So yah i keep coming across use Nvidia graphics card for rviz since they provide proprietary drivers for ubuntu i was more specifically looking for the model num's which u mentioned (Thanks) also i hope intel core's dont create havoc :P
Navam gravatar image Navam  ( 2011-09-13 07:46:26 -0600 )edit
Oh if u do get Rviz (mine hangs when i add a robot model )to work on ur integrated GMA HD card can u let me know the drivers you used? :D
Navam gravatar image Navam  ( 2011-09-13 07:50:29 -0600 )edit
I'm running Rviz on my Asus K53E (Intel Core i5 2.8GHz, Intel GMA HD graphics, Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit). I didn't install any additional drivers, so I'm using whatever comes stock with Ubuntu. I'm not at my computer right now, so I'm not sure what the name is. But I'd stick with Nvidia to be safe.
DimitriProsser gravatar image DimitriProsser  ( 2011-09-13 08:53:01 -0600 )edit

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Asked: 2011-09-12 22:07:45 -0600

Seen: 11,183 times

Last updated: Sep 13 '11