System requirements are the configuration that a system must have in order for a hardware or software application to run smoothly and efficiently. Failure to meet these requirements can result in installation problems or performance problems. If you don’t meet the requirements, it may prevent a device or application from getting installed, whereas the latter may cause a product to malfunction perform below expectations, or even hang or crash. AutoCAD has been extensively used in a variety of industries. Engineers, architects, project managers, graphic designers, and many more professionals use it every day for their work. While AutoCAD is not the heaviest modeling software out there, it still requires quite a bit of computing power to operate successfully. When it comes to technical specifications, you need to be aware of your workstation’s processor, graphics card, RAM, operating system, and a few other factors. Also, keep in mind AutoCAD requirements are different between Windows and Mac machines. If you are going to use AutoCAD’s industry-specialized toolsets, you should keep in mind that they come with their own set of additional requirements.
In this article, we will share with you the system requirements for AutoCAD for both Windows and Mac computers. We will also provide you with the additional requirements for AutoCAD’s industry-specialized toolsets, find current and previous version software and hardware requirements for operating systems, processors, memory, disk space, as well as recommendations for virtual machines and cloud computing services.
We will take a look at the AutoCAD requirements for both Windows and Mac computers. We will also provide you with the additional requirements for AutoCAD’s Specialized Tools, along with a closer look at Map 3D.
Supported operating systems 64-bit Microsoft® Windows® 11 and Windows 10 version 1809 or above. See Autodesk’s Product Support Lifecycle for support information. Processor Basic
• 2.5–2.9 GHz processor (base) ARM Processors are not supported.
Recommended
• 3+ GHz processor (base), 4+ GHz (turbo) Memory Basic
• 8 GB
Recommended
• 32 GB Display Resolution Conventional Displays:
1920 x 1080 with True Color High Resolution & 4K Displays:
Resolutions up to 3840 x 2160 (with “Recommended” display card) Display Card Basic: 2 GB GPU with 29 GB/s Bandwidth and DirectX 11 compliant
Recommended: 8 GB GPU with 106 GB/s Bandwidth and DirectX 12 compliant DirectX 12 with Feature Level 12_0 is required for Shaded(Fast) and Shaded with edges(Fast) visual styles. Please be sure to use the latest video card manufacturer drivers from their website. Note: AutoCAD uses your computer’s display card for a variety of essential graphics operations including but not limited to view manipulation, line smoothing, and text/linetype generation. It is recommended that you have a display card with dedicated VRAM to support these operations at optimal speeds. Disk Space 10.0 GB (suggested SSD) Network See Autodesk Network License Manager for Windows Pointing Device MS-Mouse compliant .NET Framework .NET Framework version 4.8 or later
Operating system Apple® macOS® Ventura v13
Apple macOS Monterey v12
Apple macOS Big Sur v11 Model Apple Mac® computers compatible with macOS Big Sur or above
Recommended: Apple Mac models supporting Metal Graphics Engine CPU Type 64-bit Intel CPU
Apple M series CPU Memory Basic: 4GB
Recommended: 8GB or higher Display Resolution Basic: 1280 x 800 display
High Resolution: 2880 x 1800 with Retina Display Disk Space 6 GB free disk space for download and installation Pointing Device Apple-compliant Mouse, Apple-compliant Trackpad, Microsoft-compliant mouse Display Card Recommended: Mac native-installed graphics cards Disk Format APFS, APFS(Encrypted), Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
Memory 16 GB RAM or more Disk Space 6 GB free hard disk available, not including installation requirements Display Card 3840 x 2160 (4K) or greater True Color video display adapter; 12GB VRAM or greater; Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater; DirectX-capable workstation class graphics card.
| AutoCAD Map 3D | Disk Space: 20GB Memory: 16GB Database & FDO Requirements (see below) |
| AutoCAD Electrical | Disk Space: 20GB Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 Redistributable (x64) (16.0.5044.1000) or later, unless Microsoft Office 2016 (x64) or later is already installed. |
| AutoCAD Architecture | Disk Space: 20GB Memory: 16GB |
| AutoCAD MEP | Disk Space: 21GB Memory: 16GB |
| AutoCAD Plant 3D | Disk Space: 12GB Memory (recommended for 3D modeling): 32GB |
| AutoCAD Mechanical | Disk Space: 12GB |
| AutoCAD Raster Design | Disk Space: 1GB |
| FDO Provider: | Certified With: | Notes: |
| Microsoft SQL Server | Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Standard and Enterprise Editions Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Standard and Enterprise Editions | Industry Models also support the versions of Microsoft SQL Server listed on the left. This provider requires the Microsoft ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server (v17.10.2) to be installed. Driver can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. |
| Oracle 12c Release 2 | Oracle 12.2.0.1.0 Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition 2 | Industry Models support the same Oracle versions as listed on the left. |
| Oracle 19c | Oracle 19.3 Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition 2 | Industry Models support the same Oracle versions as listed on the left. |
| Oracle 21c | Oracle 21.3 Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition 2 | Industry Models support the same Oracle versions as listed on the left. |
| Raster | DEM, JPG2K, DTED, MrSID ® , ECW, PNG, ESRI ® Grid, TIFF, JPEG, ESRI ® ASCII | |
| Autodesk SDF | 3.0 | |
| ESRI ArcGIS | ArcGIS® 10.8.1 ArcGIS 10.7.1 ArcGIS 10.6.1 | This Provider requires ESRI licensed components (ArcGIS Engine/ArcGIS Desktop) to be installed on Map 3D installed system. |
| MySQL | 8.0 | |
| ODBC | The FDO ODBC provider has been tested with corresponding versions of ODBC drivers that are shipped with the relevant supported operating systems version. | |
| OGC WMS | WMS 1.3.0 | |
| OGC WMTS | WMTS 1.0.0 | |
| OGC WFS | WFS 2.0.0 | |
| SQLite | SQLite 3.27.2 | |
| PostgresSQL | PostgreSQL 13.9 + PostGIS 3.0 |
| ODBC Drivers | Tested Versions |
| Microsoft® Access® Driver (*.mdb, *.accdb) | Microsoft Access database engine 2016 (English) 16.00.4999.1000 |
| Microsoft® Excel® Driver (*.xls, *xlsx, *.xlsm, *.xlsb) | Microsoft Access database engine 2016 (English) 16.00.4999.1000 |
| MySQL® ODBC 8.0 Driver | 8.00.31.00 |
| SQL Server® | 10.00.22000.01 |
| Oracle® in OraClient21Home1 | 21.00.00.00 |
If you are using an older version of AutoCAD, you can select the product below to view the system requirements for that AutoCAD version:
INDUSTRIES: Architecture, Buildings, Civil Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, Construction, Manufacturing, MEP Engineering, Structural Engineering
