-------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sim4Life V9.4 Release Notes (Desktop) -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Release Date: 05.03.2026 Sim4Life V9.4 is the latest version of our simulation platform for computational life science research, device design, and optimization, as well as safety and electromagnetic compliance evaluations. This document summarizes the features, modules, enhancements, known bugs, and other important issues for this release. For additional functionalities available in the Sim4Life V9.4 web version, please refer to https://sim4life.swiss/release-history. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. New Features & Enhancements -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1. Simulation - The new thermal unstructured stationary solver enables the calculation of steady-state temperature distribution in complex geometries using an unstructured mesh. It determines the temperature field once thermal equilibrium is reached. This approach is particularly useful for irregular shapes where flexible meshing improves accuracy and where only the final stabilized thermal condition is required. It also supports multiport configurations, similar to the rectilinear solver, allowing multiple thermal inputs to be defined within the same simulation. - The T-increase Thermal Transient Simulation option enables simplified thermal simulations focused on temperature rise rather than absolute temperature for improved accuracy and solver efficiency. -The Switch Material Database feature enables the user to change the assigned material database, for example, to use an older database version or to correct an incorrectly selected database (such as switching from low-frequency to high-frequency data). - The option to directly link the multiport low-frequency solver to the neuron solver enables users to assign the weight factor for each port directly in the neuron solver’s source settings. - Added support for NVIDIA Blackwell architecture GPUs when using the Acceleware kernel. This update enables workloads running with the Acceleware kernel to execute on Blackwell-based hardware, ensuring compatibility with NVIDIA’s next-generation GPU architecture. 1.2. Analysis - Users can now disable the current conversation check with the checkbox within sources in the Magneto-Static Vector-Potential solver when current loops are closed using PEC instead of line element loops. 1.3 Python - Improved alignment between GUI and Python workflows, a clearer API structure, and more accessible documentation support large-scale, script-driven studies. 1.4 User Experience - The manual and Python API reference have been completely rebuilt with a new documentation framework, for an improved browsing experience and search functionality. - Future updates to this release will be provided in the form of compact, quickly downloaded installers, for your convenience. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. List of Main Bugs (Selection) Fixed Since the V9.4 Release -------------------------------------------------------------------- - Case 222138: Fixed an issue where warning pop-ups could accumulate after each PC sleep cycle, if the previous warning was not dismissed, requiring users to close multiple repeated pop-ups. - Case 222698: Fixed the Birdcage tool so that the capacitor length remains unchanged when parameterization is removed and updates correctly when a new capacitor length value is applied. - Case 234130: Fixed an issue in the Huygens source settings where the amplitude was incorrectly described as being in volts. - Case 235081: Resolved an issue where cropping body models could leave zero-volume material entities in the simulation, causing bounding box errors during gridding. - Case 235986: Fixed a bug that prevented the Streamline Viewer color from updating when the color bar scale was changed. - Case 236138: Resolved an issue that caused installation or runtime problems when the installation path contained an apostrophe. - Case 236406: Fixed an issue in the Thermal Stationary Settings where the phase options for a Simulation Link heat source were displayed incorrectly depending on the order in which Treat as Port and Coherent Fields were selected. - Case 237612: Fixed an issue in the thermal solver where GPU simulations with body core heating produced a different body temperature increase time evolution compared to CPU simulations. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Known Issues -------------------------------------------------------------------- - Case 32807: Instability for some rare dispersive material configurations. - Case 47035: Random problems in the visualization of the Dispersive Viewer. - Case 54000: Random elements appearing in the Gridder. - Case 61881: Rare issue with the distribution of simulation jobs to the GPUs when using CUDA. - Case 86865: Job priorities may not correspond to the job execution order. - Case 98764: Potentially decreased accuracy in rare specific events for the sensor combiner of the Far-field sensor. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Installation Requirements -------------------------------------------------------------------- - Administrator rights are required during the installation process. - NVIDIA graphics card, with support for OpenGL versions higher than v3.3. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Supported OS -------------------------------------------------------------------- - Windows 11 (64 bit, x64) Acceleware libraries: - Deprecated library 11.1.13 Erbil: Uses CUDA 11.1 Supports: Kepler (K20) to Ampere (40 and RTX) architectures CUDA computing capability: sm_35 up to sm_86 - Current library 13.0: Uses CUDA 13.0 Supports: Turing (20xx) up to Blackwell (50xx and RTX) architectures CUDA computing capability: sm_75 up to sm_100 CUDA library: - Uses CUDA 12.8 Supports: Maxwell (9xx) to Blackwell (50xx and RTX) architectures CUDA compute capability: sm_35 up to sm_100 Please note that only NVIDIA GPUs with CUDA Compute Capability 7.5 or higher are supported by the Sim4Life AXE solver. The Sim4Life CUDA solver support starts from CUDA 5.0. For the CUDA-based solvers (CUDA P-EM-FDTD, P-THERMAL, P-ACOUSTICS), Sim4Life supports NVIDIA GPU models equipped with CUDA compute capability 5.0 (6.0 for P-THERMAL) up to 13.0, and requires device drivers that support the CUDA toolkit 11.0 and above. Note that NVIDIA may choose to discontinue certain drivers for specific operating systems, e.g., CUDA 12.2 drivers may not be available for Windows 10 for certain GPU series. In such a case, an update to Windows 11 may permit further usage of the GPU with Sim4Life.