This article will outline the best system recommendations and habits to ensure that you have an optimal experience using OpenSolar. 

OpenSolar is available to use freely on all platforms and browsers, but will generally perform more optimally on certain browsers and with certain settings.

Design recommendations

OpenSolar's comprehensive design tool works very well for users on computers meeting the basic hardware requirements detailed below. As projects get more complex they become more computationally intense which can lead to slower load times. If you experience slower load times you can either upgrade your hardware to a machine with more RAM or you can check your project to see which drivers of computational intensity are present, and streamline your design by removing them. The major drivers of computational intensity are:

• Very large systems
• Many systems per project
• Many fully strung systems per project
• Many payment options per system
• Many roof facets defined per system
• Many arrays per system
• All systems using 3D Design mode

For further recommendations on how to design on OpenSolar to ensure the best experience, please see this article: https://support.opensolar.com/hc/en-us/articles/4689753994255 

Device recommendations

Mobile

For mobile devices we recommend that you are using a device that can support the latest operating system updates. This will change overtime, but at the time this article was written, for Apple this would be the iPhone 6s and updating to iOS 15.4.

Tablet

For tablet devices we also recommend that you are using a device that can support the latest operating system updates. This will change overtime, but at the time this article was written, for Apple this would be the iPad 5th Gen (for example) and updating to iPadOS 15.4.

Desktop/Laptop

For desktops we suggest that you have at least 8GB of RAM and are running the latest version of the OS that you use. Suggested OS's would be:

• Apple
• Windows 

For laptops, we also suggest that you have at least 8GB of RAM and are using a newer model from at least 2015. Recommend OS's would be:

• Apple
• Windows

Browser and settings recommendations

OpenSolar recommends that you use the tool on the Google Chrome browser which generally has the best performance for the app. 

Further to using Google Chrome, you also want to ensure that you have enabled WebGL on your device. 

Disclaimer: If your device is not built to run WebGL, enabling it may damage your device.

To check if your browser supports WebGL, please visit https://get.webgl.org/.

If the website says that your browser does not support WebGL, then please follow steps below to activate it. 

Chrome

1. Go to chrome://settings/ 
2. Scroll down to System on the left column
   
3. Ensure that Use Hardware Acceleration When Available is turned on
   

Note: You will need to ensure that you restart your browser for this change to take effect.