GAMA 1.7 comes in 5 different versions (32 & 64 bits for Windows & Linux, and 64 bits for MacOS X). You first need to determine which version to use (it depends on your computer, which may, or not, support 64 bits instructions, but also on the version of Java already installed, as the number of bits of the two versions must match).
You can then download the right version from the Downloads page, expand the zip file wherever you want on your machine, and launch GAMA.
GAMA 1.7 requires that Java 1.8 be installed on your machine, approximately 200MB of disk space and a minimum of 4GB of RAM (to increase the portion of memory usable by GAMA, please refer to these instructions).
In some cases, “Archive utility.app” in MacOS may damage the files when extracting them from the zip or tar.gz archive files. This problem manifests itself by a dialog opening and explaining that the application is damaged and cannot be launched (see Issue 2082 and also this thread. In that case, to expand the files, consider using a different utility, like the free Stuffit Expander or directly from the command line.
MacOS Sierra has introduced a series of issues linked to the so-called “quarantine” mode (where applications downloaded from Internet prevent to use and update their internal components, such as the models of the library or the self-updating of the application). See this page for background information. To be certain that Gama will work, and until we find an easier solution, the installation should follow these steps:
Gama in the Applications folderTerminal.appcd /Applications and hit return.xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine Gama.app/ and hit return to remove the quarantine attributeFrom now on, Gama should be fully functional.
On all environments, the recommended Java Virtual Machine under which GAMA has been tested is the one distributed by Oracle (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index-jsp-138363.html#javasejdk). Please make sure to install the JDK (Java Development Kit) and not the JRE (Java Runtime Environment). GAMA may work with the standard JRE, although it will be slower and may even crash (esp. under MacOS X).
The latest version of GAMA requires a JVM (or JDK or JRE) compatible with Java 1.8 to run.
Note for GAMA 1.6.1 users: if you plan to keep a copy of GAMA 1.6.1, you will need to have both Java 1.6 (distributed by Apple) and Java 1.8 (distributed by Oracle) installed at the same time. Because of this bug in SWT (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=374199), GAMA 1.6.1 will not run correctly under Java 1.8 (all the displays will appear empty). To install the JDK 1.6 distributed by Apple, follow the instructions here : http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572. Alternatively, you might want to go to https://developer.apple.com/downloads and, after a free registration step if you’re not an Apple Developer, get the complete JDK from the list of downloads.
Please notice that, by default, Internet Explorer and Chrome browsers will download a 32 bits version of the JRE. Running GAMA 32 bits for Windows is ok, but you may want to download the latest JDK instead, in order to both improve the performances of the simulator and be able to run GAMA 64 bits.
In order for Java to be found by Windows, you may have to modify environment variables:
To have a complete overview of java management on Ubuntu, have a look at:
Basically, you need to do:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer
You can then switch between java version using:
sudo update-alternatives --config java
See the troubleshooting page for more information on workaround for problems on Unbuntu.