System Requirements

Available now

• Windows 10 or later, 64-bit.
• macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later, on Apple Silicon or Intel.

Not available

There is no Linux build and no browser version of Grout. If you see Linux mentioned anywhere else, treat it as unsupported until a Linux build appears on the download page.

Minimum specification

• Processor: 1.6 GHz dual-core or faster.
• Memory: 8 GB of RAM.
• Disk: 4 GB of free space for the application itself, before any models.
• Graphics: no dedicated card required — the canvas runs on integrated graphics.
• Network: needed to download the application and models, to activate a licence and for the Nexus AI cloud module. Not needed to run a model already on disk.

Recommended specification

• Memory: 16 GB of RAM.
• Disk: an SSD with 20 GB or more free, so several models can sit side by side.
• Processor: a recent multi-core CPU — Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 class and above, or any Apple Silicon chip.
• Graphics: a dedicated GPU with 4 GB or more of video memory, or Apple Silicon. Either shortens image generation noticeably; neither is required.

The rule of thumb

A local model needs roughly as much free memory as its file is large, plus one to two gigabytes of headroom for the application. Check a model's download size before you fetch it and compare it against the memory you have free at the time, not the memory installed in the machine.

What that means in practice

• 8 GB of RAM: the smallest text models only, one at a time, and expect to close other applications first.
• 12 GB: small and lower-mid models, with room to keep working alongside them.
• 16 GB: mid-sized models with the canvas open alongside them.
• 32 GB or more: the largest local models, or a text model and a vision model loaded together.

When the machine is the limit

If no local model that fits is capable enough, the optional Nexus AI module runs 300+ models on Grout's cloud GPUs instead, so an older laptop can still reach a large model. It needs an account, an internet connection and Merits, and the prompt leaves the machine — so it is not the path to use for student answer sheets.

Storage

Budget for the application, the models and your projects separately. The application is a fixed 4 GB. Models are large and multiply quickly, because it is tempting to keep one of each. Project files grow with the images you place on the canvas, so exported worksheets and imported photographs both count.

Network

You need a connection to download Grout, to download or update models, to activate a licence and to use the Nexus AI cloud module. Everything else — text generation, vision analysis, image work and the canvas — runs with the connection switched off, once the model is on disk.

Notes

• Performance varies with project size and with how many models you keep loaded at once.
• Requirements can change with new releases; the download page always carries the figures for the current build.
• These are the reference figures the rest of this help centre follows. Where another page disagrees, this page is the one to trust.