System Requirements

Why this simulator uses real compute power, and what your system should provide

Spinning Magnets Lab is not a static visualization or a precomputed animation. It is a deterministic physics engine that evaluates magnetic fields, flux integration, electrical response, and electromechanical coupling in real time.

Important: Every value you see on screen is computed live from physics — nothing is faked, interpolated, or pre-rendered.

Why the Simulator Needs Compute Power

Each frame of the simulation performs a full physical evaluation chain: 

geometry placement
→ magnetic field evaluation (per sample point)
→ coil surface integration (numerical quadrature)
→ flux linkage history
→ induced voltage
→ current (RL model or load model)
→ electromagnetic torque
→ power and energy tracking

Many of these steps involve hundreds to thousands of field evaluations per frame, especially when overlays like heatmaps, vector fields, or flux lines are enabled.

This is fundamentally different from a game or animation. It behaves more like a numerical instrument.

Deterministic Simulation Model

The simulator follows a strict one-way pipeline: 

project state
→ normalized inputs
→ physics engine
→ derived outputs
→ rendering

No UI shortcuts are allowed. All displayed values originate from the engine, not from approximations or cached visuals.

This principle is also enforced at system level: the UI never performs physics calculations.

Minimum Requirements

Component Minimum
CPU Dual-core (Intel i3 / Ryzen 3 or equivalent)
RAM 4 GB
GPU Integrated graphics (WebGL capable)
Browser Modern Chromium / Firefox
Resolution 1366×768

This configuration allows basic simulation and simple setups, but performance may degrade when enabling advanced overlays.

Recommended System

Component Recommended
CPU 4–8 cores (Ryzen 5 / i5 or better)
RAM 8–16 GB
GPU Dedicated GPU or strong integrated GPU
Browser Latest Chrome / Chromium
Display 1920×1080 or higher

High-End / Lab Use

For large experiments, high-resolution overlays, and complex machines:

This is especially important when:

Performance Scaling

Simulation cost grows with:

Example: 

heatmap 42×42  → 1764 field samples
heatmap 120×120 → 14400 field samples

Each sample requires a full magnetic field evaluation.

Worker-Based Parallelization

Heavy calculations are executed in a dedicated worker thread.

This keeps the UI responsive while physics is computed in the background.

The worker performs:

Common Misunderstandings

"Why does it use CPU when nothing moves?"
Even a static rotor position still requires full field evaluation and coil integration.
"Why does performance drop with overlays?"
Overlays require dense sampling of the magnetic field — this is real physics workload.
"Why not precompute everything?"
Because every parameter can change continuously. Precomputation would break determinism and physical traceability.

What Makes This Different

Most tools:

This simulator:

That is why it behaves more like a measurement instrument than a typical web app.

Summary

The computational cost is not a limitation — it is a direct consequence of physical correctness.

You are effectively running a real-time electromagnetic simulation engine inside your browser.