System requirements
Supported operating systems, hardware needs, and known compatibility notes.
Beam Bench public beta is currently available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Operating systems
- macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later. Apple Silicon and Intel.
- Windows 10 or later, 64-bit. Windows 11 works out of the box; on Windows 10, the installer will offer to set up the system browser component it needs if missing.
- Linux, 64-bit. Most distros released since 2022 should work; older releases may be missing system libraries Beam Bench needs.
If you are on an older OS than the above, the installer may launch but expect rendering issues or crashes.
Hardware
Beam Bench is lighter than most CAD tools but the canvas is GPU-accelerated and large designs benefit from a decent machine.
- CPU: any 64-bit CPU made in the last several years.
- RAM: 4 GB minimum, 8 GB+ recommended for designs with many objects or large rasters.
- GPU: any GPU with hardware compositing. Integrated graphics are fine.
- Storage: under 200 MB for the app itself. Projects are typically small (KB to MB).
Display
- 1280 by 800 minimum. The panel layout assumes you have at least that.
- Retina / HiDPI fully supported.
Connectivity
- For GRBL machines: a free USB port and the correct driver for your controller (CH340, CP210x, FTDI, native USB CDC).
- For cameras: a webcam or workspace camera that macOS / Windows / Linux can see at the OS level.
Permissions
Beam Bench needs:
- Camera access if you use the Camera panel.
- Serial / USB device access to talk to your machine.
- Local network access if you expose the local HTTP API.
On macOS the system will prompt you for camera permission the first time the Camera panel opens. On Linux, you may need to add yourself to the dialout group to access serial ports. See Linux serial permissions.
What is NOT supported
- 32-bit operating systems.
- Older Linux distributions missing current desktop system libraries.