EUGene Program Specifications
and Requirements
Requirements
- Processor: 80486+ PC
- Memory: 16 MB (More memory will speed up program execution)
- Operating System: Any 32 bit Windows operating system, including Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT (version 4.0 or higher), Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP. It has also been reported that EUGene runs just fine using the open source “wine” windows emulator on Linux (specifically reported on Ubuntu 7.10).
- Disk Space: Full install: 200 MB (200 MB for final installed program and all data files plus 90 MB temporary space for downloaded setup file).
- Notes: Any system meeting the above requirements should perform acceptably when used to output data previously calculated by EUGene. However, new calculations are best performed on a fast PC. In particular, the recalculation of risk scores is not recommended except on the fastest systems, as their original generation took approximately 6 months on two 200 MHz Pentium Pros running Windows NT (which was current during program development).
Development Notes
EUGene was written using the Borland/CodeGear Delphi language (v1.0 through 6, 2005, and 2007).
The program consists of over 35,000 lines of computer code split into over 40 units, and multiple Windows forms. The final executable file is about 1.5 Megabytes. Source code is distributed with the program. Distribution is from Professor D. Scott Bennett, The Pennsylvania State University, email sbennett@psu.edu.
Run-Time
On a 200 MHz Pentium Pro PC running Windows NT 4.0, EUGene takes approximately the following time to perform specific functions:
- 5 seconds to calculate COW National Capabilities Index
- 24 minutes to calculate tau-b scores
- 20 minutes to compute expected utility according to War Trap procedures
- About 180 days (yes, days) to compute complete risk attitude scores with typical genetic algorithm settings (as the number of countries in the system grows, computing risk data takes exponentially longer; for a single year in the mid-1970s such calculations takes 2-3 days, while a computation in the 1980s takes 8-9 days;
- 20 minutes to compute expected utility according to War and Reason procedures (can only be done after risk scores are generated)
- 30-45 minutes to write output data on all dyads, 1816-1993, outputting ccode, year, capabilities, risk, and expected utility. If you output data while specifying backwards induction to generate expected utility equilibria, output will take approximately ½ hour longer than when using the logical conditions. In addition, adding more variables will slow the total time to output the data set.