System Requirements

  • Article

You must meet the following system requirements to develop applications using the Kinect for Windows SDK version 2.0.

Important

Refer to the release notes for the most up-to-date info about system requirements and installation instructions.

  • Supported Operating Systems and Architectures
  • Recommended Hardware Configuration
  • Software Requirements
  • Additional Software Requirements

Supported Operating Systems and Architectures

The following operating systems and architectures are supported:

  • Windows 8 (x64)
  • Windows 8.1 (x64)
  • Windows 8 Embedded Standard (x64)
  • Windows 8.1 Embedded Standard (x64)

Recommended Hardware Configuration

Your computer must have the following minimum capabilities:

  • 64 bit (x64) processor

  • 4 GB Memory (or more)

  • I7 3.1 GHz (or higher)

  • Built-in USB 3.0 host controller (Intel or Renesas chipset).

    If you're adding USB 3.0 functionality to your existing PC through an adapter, please ensure that it is a Windows 8 compliant device and that it supports Gen-2. See the troubleshooting section of Getting Started for more information.

  • DX11 capable graphics adapter (see list of known good adapters below)

    • Intel HD 4400 integrated display adapter
    • ATI Radeon HD 5400 series
    • ATI Radeon HD 6570
    • ATI Radeon HD 7800 (256-bit GDDR5 2GB/1000Mhz)
    • NVidia Quadro 600
    • NVidia GeForce GT 640
    • NVidia GeForce GTX 660
    • NVidia Quadro K1000M

  • A Kinect v2 sensor, which includes a power hub and USB cabling.

Important

Many laptops switch to a low-power mode that reduces GPU performance when operating without external power. If you plan to work on a laptop that is operating on battery power, you should disable low-power mode for your GPU. In some cases, the GPU performance is limited while on battery power even when low-power mode is disabled. In this case, you should keep your laptop plugged in while using the Kinect for Windows sensor.

Important

Kinect Fusion - When using Kinect Fusion, Kinect can process data either on a DirectX 11 compatible GPU with C++ AMP, or on the CPU, by setting the reconstruction processor type during reconstruction volume creation. The CPU processor is best suited to offline processing as only modern DirectX 11 GPUs will enable real-time and interactive frame rates during reconstruction.

Software Requirements

The following developer environments are supported:

  • All Visual Studio 2012, including Visual Studio 2012 Express (Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Express)
  • Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate, Premium, Professional, and Express for Windows Desktop

Additional Software Requirements

The speech samples also require:

The Depth-D3D and DepthWithColor-D3D samples also require: