PhET Help Center - Running Sims - General Skip to Main Content Simulations All Sims Physics Chemistry Math Earth Science Biology Translated Sims Prototypes Teaching About Tips for Using PhET Browse Activities Share Your Activities My Activities Virtual Workshop: Math Research Access & Inclusion About Accessible Simulations Research and Design Technical Implementation Donate Sign in / Register Sign In An invalid email address and/or password has been entered. Email address Password Remember me Forgot password? Don't have an account? Register. Resend Confirmation Time to update! We are working to improve the usability of our website. To support this effort, please update your profile! Skip for now Update Profile Search the PhET Website Getting Started Running Sims Quick Tips Offline Account Translation General macOS Windows iOS Chromebook Android Linux What are the System Requirements for running PhET HTML5 simulations? HTML5 sims can run on iPads and Chromebooks, as well as PC, Mac, and Linux systems on modern web browsers. If you are experiencing issues using an HTML5 sim on a supported platform, please disable any browser extensions. iPad: iOS 13+ Safari iPad compatible sims Android: Not officially supported. If you are using the HTML5 sims on Android, we recommend using the latest version of Google Chrome. Chromebook: Latest version of Google Chrome The HTML5 and Flash PhET sims are supported on all Chromebooks. Chromebook compatible sims Windows Systems: Microsoft Edge, latest version of Firefox, latest version of Google Chrome. Macintosh Systems: macOS 10.13+, Safari 13+, latest version of Chrome. Linux Systems: Not officially supported. Please contact phethelp@colorado.edu with troubleshooting issues. What are the System Requirements for running PhET Legacy simulations? The Java and Flash simulations will run on most PC, Mac, and Linux systems. Adobe has announced the end-of-life of Flash and beginning January 1, 2021, you will no longer be able to run PhET’s Flash sims on modern web browsers. To continue to run our Flash sims outside of a web browser, some users have found a way to open English Flash simulation .swf files natively using Adobe Projector, but sims run in this manner are not supported by PhET. Download a .zip file with all English Flash .swf files. PhET relies on donations from users like you to fund our conversions to HTML5. If you haven't already, please consider donating to our project so that we are able to continue converting your favorite sims. Java and Flash System Requirements Windows Systems: Windows 10, 8.1, 7 RAM: 256 MB Browsers: Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11, Firefox, Chrome Latest version of Java Macintosh Systems: macOS 10.9.5+ Administrator privileges for installation. A 64-bit browser (Safari, Firefox, or Chrome for example) is required to run Oracle Java on Mac OS. Latest version of Java Linux Systems: Oracle Linux 5.5+1 Oracle Linux 6.x (32-bit), 6.x (64-bit)2 Oracle Linux 7.x (64-bit)2 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5+1, 6.x (32-bit), 6.x (64-bit)2 Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS, 13.x Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2+, 11.x Browsers: Firefox, Chrome Latest version of Java What are the System Requirements for running PhET Java via CheerpJ simulations? PhET has partnered with Leaning Technologies to allow our legacy Java simulations to run in a web browser via a technology called CheerpJ. Some simulations have specific features that are not supported in the CheerpJ version. Please see sim-specific documentation. CheerpJ System Requirements Internet access Windows: Chrome, Edge Mac: Chrome, Safari Chromebook: Chrome iPad: Safari (see sim-specific compatibility) Mobile phones: not recommended Where do I start if the simulations do not run on my computer? First, update to the latest version of Java here. Run the latest version of the sim directly from https://phet.colorado.edu by clicking the 'Play' button on the sim page. If you are using a Mac please see here for detailed instructions. Why can I run some of the simulations but not all? PhET simulations are written in three different programming languages: Java, Flash, and HTML5. These are each handled by a computer differently, and some may be compatible with your device while others not. See Windows, Mac, etc. for more answers. I'm getting a message saying "Running with low graphics quality. WebGL is not enabled or not available." What does this mean? WebGL is not supported on all internet browsers. To find more about compatibility, see WebGL Simulation Compatibility. Do I need to be connected to the internet to run simulations? No! You can download the entire site using the offline installer or read more about offline use at Offline. When I click 'Play' on a sim a .jar file is downloaded? What's this? You'll need to first download and install Java. Once you have that successfully installed Java, click 'Play' to download a .jar file. If you receive any messages about the file download, click the 'Keep' button. Navigate to the download location and open the .jar file. If you encounter any problems opening the .jar see this entry. I'm having trouble running the sims, how do I send my information to phethelp@colorado.edu? Submitting a detailed system report by opening a working HTML5 sim, copy/paste the 'report a problem', and send the information in an email to phethelp@colorado.edu: Click the PhET Menu (3 horizontal lines) Click "Report a Problem..." Copy/paste the output in an email to phethelp@colorado.edu (be sure not to edit the 'Troubleshooting information' section) If you cannot open an HTML5 sim, please copy/paste the following text in an email to phethelp@colorado.edu: User-agent: "{{USER_AGENT}}" About PhET Our Team Our Supporters Partnerships Offline Access Help Center Contact Source Code Licensing For Translators English العربية (السعودية) Basque беларускі Bosnian 中文 (中国) 中文 (台灣) hrvatski čeština Dansk Nederlands Eesti suomi français Gallegan Georgian Deutsch Ελληνικά magyar Bahasa Indonesia italiano 日本語 한국어 Kurdish Kurdish (Turkey) македонски Marathi Mongolian Norwegian Bokmål Norwegian Nynorsk Persian português português (Brasil) română Српски Sinhalese Slovenčina español español (Perú) ไทย Türkçe українська Tiếng Việt English العربية Euskara Беларуская Bosanski 简体中文 正體中文 Hrvatski Česky Dansk Nederlands Eesti Suomi Français Galego ქართული Deutsch Ελληνικά Magyar Bahasa Indonesia Italiano 日本語 한국어 كوردي Kurdî Македонски मराठी Монгол Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk فارسی Português Português do Brasil Română Српски සිංහල Slovensky Español Español Internacional ไทย Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt Get Apps for Schools ©2021 University of Colorado. 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