Frequently Asked Questions
How can I purchase a copy of EMPLabTM?
To purchase EMPLabTM, you can email our sales department at sales@emphotonics.com.
^Top
Why don't I see anything other than the title bar when I open EMPLabTM?
This problem is caused by a compatabliltiy issue between all versions before MATLAB 6.4 and Windows XP. For more information about this problem and how to resolve it, please review the solution on MATLAB's webpage.
^Top
Why does nothing happen when I try to open the Help File?
You do not have Internet Explorer set as your default browser. To fix this problem, you can switch Internet Explorer to your default browser or you can open the files manually with you preferred browser. These help files are located in the following folder: .../EMPLab/Documents/Help File.
^Top
Does my system support EMPLab Accelerator?
We have a program on the website that can detect if your video card will work with EMPLab GPU Edition. Please download and run this program.
Instructions for running query program:
  • Download this file.
  • Unzip the contents of the file to your hard drive
  • Double-click the “vidcard_query” file to run – a text box will pop up with the results of the system inspection. No data is sent to EM Photonics during this process.
If your card is ATI brand, the program may report that it is supported. However, we currently do not support ATI cards. If you have one of these, please contact us for more details.
^Top
What if the program reports that my system does not support the product?
This can happen for a variety of reasons:
  • Your card is not supported. See below for a list of supported hardware.
  • The drivers for your card are out of date. Please visit your manufacturer’s website and verify that you are running the latest drivers.
  • The program simply failed to detect your system properly. This can happen on systems with multiple displays, or on systems that are not running Windows XP. Please send the output to info@emphotonics.com and we can provide a more in-depth answer.
^Top
Which graphics cards are supported?
Currently we primarily support the “GeForce” series of cards from NVIDIA. More specifically, we support cards starting from the GeForce 6 series. It is important to note that the code is fully forward compatible with future releases from NVIDIA and performance should improve with new cards!
^Top
I need to upgrade – what should I buy?
If purchasing a new card, the best NVIDIA card available is recommended (assuming your system supports it). At the time of writing, the fastest for PCI-Express are:
  • GeForce 7800 GTX 512
  • GeForce 7900 GTX 512
  • Quadro FX 4500 X2
  • GeForce 7800 GT
The fastest for AGP is:
  • GeForce 6800 GS
^Top
I don’t know if I have AGP or PCI-Express!
This can be difficult to determine because of the way Windows treats these devices. The best way is to:
  • Open the “System” box in the Control Panel
  • Choose the “Hardware” tab and press the “Device Manager” button
  • In the Device Manager, choose “view” and then “devices by connection”, as shown below

  • Now, expand tabs until you find the “PCI bus” entry. This will be found in different places on different systems.
  • Examine the entries under PCI Bus to find either PCI Express...

  • ... or AGP.

^Top
Do I need anything else?
Currently our product is only compatible with Windows 2000 and XP.
You will need to have MATLAB 6 or MATLAB 7 installed. Critical: due to a bug in MATLAB, it MUST be installed to a path with no spaces. Example: c:\MATLAB7\
^Top
How does it perform?
We have benchmarked a GeForce 7800 GTX against a Pentium 4 3.4 GHz system with DDR2-667 RAM and found that the graphics card is 180x faster than standard EMPLab.
In comparison, a GeForce 6800 Ultra is 50x faster than standard EMPLab.
^Top
What problem sizes are possible?
This question is difficult to answer as it is problem-dependent and also GPU/driver/memory dependent. For the 256 MB card, we are often able to solve problems of up to 4.5 million nodes. For a 512 MB card, this figure will roughly double.
^Top
What features of EMPLab are supported?
All EMPLab features are available in GPU Edition. However, only meshing and the 2D FDTD engine are accelerated. Toolboxes (Planar, Mode Solver, Unit Cell Analysis) and 3D FDTD are NOT currently accelerated.
^Top