System requirements

TwinCAT 3 Engineering (XAE) and TwinCAT 3 Runtime (XAR) have different system requirements. If you install XAE and XAR on one computer, the requirements for both components must be met.

Some components (such as TcXaeShell64 or TwinCAT Functions) have their own system requirements, which must be considered in combination and can be found in the respective documentation.

TwinCAT 3 eXtended Automation Engineering (XAE)

TwinCAT 3 XAE is an extension for Visual Studio, so that the requirements of Visual Studio must essentially be met.

System requirements for the Visual Studio 2017 Shell ("TcXaeShell") or Visual Studio 2022 Shell ("TcXaeShell64") supplied:

Operating systems

Windows 10 (TcXaeShell64: min. Windows 10 20H2)
Windows 11

Hardware

Processor speed 1.8 GHz or faster; dual-core or better is recommended
Main memory: at least 4 GB RAM (with TcXaeShell64: 16GB RAM recommended)
Hard disk space: 10 GB of available memory if Visual Studio is not yet installed.
Hard disk speed: the use of a solid-state drive (SSD) is recommended.
Graphics card: the minimum supported resolution should be 720p (1208 x 720). Recommended: support for FullHD resolution (1920 x 1080) or higher.

TwinCAT 3 eXtended Automation Runtime (XAR)

System requirements for TwinCAT 3 XAR depending on the program to be executed:

Operating systems	Windows Embedded Standard 7 (WES7): supported up to TwinCAT 3.1 Build 4024 Windows 10 Windows 10 LTSB, LTSC
Beckhoff Embedded PC with TwinCAT 3 image	Windows Embedded Compact 7 (WEC7): supported up to TwinCAT 3.1 Build 4024 TwinCAT/BSD
Hardware	Hard disk space: at least 2 GB Main memory depends on the activated configuration

Hyper-V environment:

The runtime environment cannot be started within a Hyper-V environment. This refers in particular to Hyper-V virtual machines running in a privileged Hyper-V machine. As soon as a component of the computer uses Hyper-V, only the engineering environment (XAE) can be used on this computer, but not the runtime environment (XAR). In addition to software solutions for virtual machines, Hyper-V can also be used by operating system tools (Device Guard, Credential Guard, Virtualization-based Security,...) or other Hyper-V programs.
TwinCAT tries to detect these Hyper-V environments; however, due to the nature of virtualization approaches, they try and avoid detection, so that TwinCAT is unable to guarantee 100% detection.
With TwinCAT 3.1 Build 4026, users can also use the user mode runtime.

VT-x CPU function:

For 64-bit operating systems, the VT-x CPU function is mandatory (must be activated and available in the BIOS).

Real-time behavior:

For optimal, reliable and high-performance real-time behavior, a complete system (hardware, BIOS, operating system, driver software, real-time control software) is absolutely essential. Each individual component of the control system must be checked and optimized for this application in order to achieve optimal, reliable and high-performance real-time behavior. Beckhoff Industrial PCs are optimized in detail for this purpose. When using the TwinCAT 3 Runtime (XAR) on PCs from third-party providers, flawless real-time behavior cannot be guaranteed.

Component-specific system requirements:

Further system requirements can be found in the respective product descriptions of the TwinCAT components.

Further Information