[Chimera-users] 3D Visualization

[Tom Goddard]

Hi Dave,

I would recommend ChimeraX, not Chimera for large protein structures (more than 100,000 atoms).  Chimera has extremely slow handling of mmCIF files used by the PDB for all structures over 100,000 atoms, can take minutes to load, while ChimeraX loads in seconds.

Computer recommendations would be the same for Chimera or ChimeraX.  Fast graphics (video gamer cards) helps, an SSD drive for fast data read helps, 16 Gbytes fine for most data, unless you work with exceptionally large (million atom) structures then 32 Gb or more is useful.

Previous discussions of ChimeraX hardware found by Google

https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2020-September/001504.html <https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2020-September/001504.html>
https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2020-October/001585.html
https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2018-July/000271.html <https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2018-July/000271.html>
...

3D glasses other than virtual reality are all but dead.  ChimeraX works well with VR.  Chimera does not support VR.

A high resolution monitor (e.g. 4K) is nice for looking at large structures if you don't like seeing all the screen pixels.

	Tom


> On Aug 25, 2021, at 12:49 PM, Song, David via Chimera-users <chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> My name is Dave Song, and I am a graduate student interested in visualizing protein structures in 3D. I was wondering if you had any recommendations in regards to computer hardware requirements for maximum performance while using Chimera/ChimeraX. Additionally, do you have any suggestions on monitors and 3D glasses that work well with Chimera? 
> 
> Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
> 
> Best,
> Dave
> 
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