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System requirements

Operating system

Operating system

Stereo Tool works on the following OS's:

  • Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11, NT versions, LTSB, LTSC, 32 and 64 bit.
  • Linux, basically any Linux version (command line only or with XWindows) with GLIBC 2.27 (2018) or newer.
  • macOS 10.14 or newer.

 

Hardware

Stereo Tool can run on hardware ranging from extremely limited to high end. On limited hardware, some settings may need to be disabled or tweaked to be able to run it.

 

CPU - without numbers

On a modern, reasonably fast system, we typically recommend to have:

  • 1 CPU core per Basic/HD instance.
  • 2 CPU cores per FM instance.
  • 1 CPU core for I/O, GUI, web interface.
  • If you want to use low latency monitoring (under 5 ms latency), 1 CPU core for the low latency processing.

If you really need to, you can run 2 Basic/HD instance on a single core, and 1 FM instance on a single core.

 

CPU - with numbers

PassMark is a CPU benchmark that closely matches the performance of Stereo Tool, so the PassMark numbers can be used to estimate CPU usage on a specific CPU. Passmark numbers are available for large numbers of CPU's on https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ .

CPU usage depends on settings. The numbers in the table below are based on "typical" usage (Adaptive Bass Monster - Dense (Warmer) preset, with Declipper, Delossifier and Noise gate enabled).

  Lower quality Standard quality Higher quality
Basic 458 676 1161
FM L/R (FM Standard) 645 946 1477
FM Composite (FM Professional) 686 1135 1889
FM Composite with Stokkemask (ITU-R SM.1268) 749  1456 2357

 

For processing multiple stations (for example with ST-Enterprise), add required scores together per instance. Values may differ depending on presets and exact hardware configuration.

The GUI also uses some amount of CPU. In the most extreme case (full screen, 4K, all 30 meters active) this can rise upto 1800. However, this is not a typical use case scenario, the typical use is around 180. If the CPU can not keep up, the frame rate will be reduced. In most cases this won't affect audio.

We recommend using a CPU that has sufficient headroom. Typically, it's good to try to keep CPU usage below 50% or so. Which means that if you're buying a new system, we recommend to choose something that's at least twice as fast as you need. That may also help if we add CPU heavy featurs in the future.

 

Memory

Memory usage depends mostly on the OS; for Linux or Windows XP, 1 GB is usually sufficient. For Windows 11 we recommend at least 8 GB - Windows just needs that much.

For running multiple instances, add 600 MB per instance.

 

Sound card

Stereo Tool can run with any sound card, including virtual sound cards, AES67 sound cards etc.

Specifically for FM, you'll need a sound card that support a sample rate of 192 kHz. Note that this only applies if you send audio directly from Stereo Tool to the transmitter via the sound card; if you use for example MicroMPX, then you don't need a 192 kHz sound card in the Stereo Tool pc.

For FM, a sound card needs to be able to output frequencies up to 60 kHz (74 kHz when using for RDS2), and be as flat as possible in the entire frequency range from 0 Hz up to 60 kHz, both in frequency and phase response. Stereo Tool can compensate for a lot of flatness issues, but if that's necessary it makes setup a bit more difficult.

While we don't recommend it for normal use, many on-board (Realtek etc) sound cards can perfectly generate an MPX signal, usually with a bit of calibration. Nosie levels tend to be a bit higher on such cards, but for testng (or emergency/backup) it's perfectly usable.

 

If you care about latency

If you want to keep the latency as low as possible, make sure to let everything run on its own CPU core. So then you need:

  • 1 core for I/O
  • 1 core for GUI, web interface, background tasks
  • 1 core for each Basic/HD instance
  • 2 cores for each FM instance
  • 1 core for each low latency chain, if you use those.

Higher PassMark values *per core* are more important than the total PassMark value for latency.

If you're using Windows, the sound card needs to run in ASIO mode for lowest latency.