Computing Requirements for Students

Students at UB are required to have access to a computer—access beyond what is provided in the University’s public computing sites and School's labs. While ownership is not strictly required, ninety-eight percent of UB's students owned a computer, and most will find it essential for success in their academic pursuits. If you already have a computer, this site and UB's computing site, will help determine if it complies with UB’s and the School’s support standards to ensure that it meets your needs for discipline-specific work in the School. Note: While the University specification provides recommendations for several different computing platforms, due to system integration issues in the School of Architecture and Planning, we do not currently recommend or support the Macintosh or Linux platforms. Additionally, due to discipline-specific software incompatibilities, we do not recommend Microsoft Windows Vista at this time.

Information on the University computing requirement can be found at www.ubit.buffalo.edu.

The above site provides a MINIMUM guide of system requirements mandated by the University. However, due to the data-intensive and graphic-intensive nature of computer-based work undertaken in the School of Architecture and Planning,workstation class desktop and laptop machines are recommended. As such, the following upgrades to the minimum requirements are necessary:

  • Processor: no Celeron. 2.0 GHz or greater dual core recommended
  • RAM: 2GB minimum; 4GB recommended.
  • Hard drive: 60GB minimum.
  • Removable storage: DVD+/RW burner and a 2GB (min.) thumb drive.
  • Display: 17" minimum for desktops (larger recommended); 15.4" minimum for laptops.
  • Graphics card: 256MB minimum video memory; OpenGL compatible graphics card with 256MB video memory highly recommended for Architecture majors.

Additionally, students should acquire a supply of storage media (cd-r, cd-rw, dvd-r or dvd-rw) for storing and backing up their projects. Architecture majors must also have access to a 5+ megapixel digital camera with 256MB memory (minimum) for documenting their work and completing other course assignments.

Suggested Software

In addition to software required as part of the University computing requirement as detailed at www.ubit.buffalo.edu, the following discipline specific software is also suggested:

Undergraduate and Graduate Architecture Majors

  • Adobe Creative Suite 2.x Premium Edition
  • AutoCAD (required at the junior level and beyond)
  • Autodesk VIZ (required at the junior level and beyond)
    (available as a free download to student at: http://students3.autodesk.com/)
  • Revit (required at the junior level and beyond)
    (available as a free download to student at: http://students3.autodesk.com/)
  • 3D Studio MAX (required at the junior level and beyond)

All software is available at special discounted educational pricing through UBMicro, UB's on-campus not-for-profit computer store.