Jaws System Requirements

[Su Mcdowall]

Im partially sighted and studying engineering. I would like to use AutoCAD and in the process of purchasing a laptop capable of running AutoCAD alongside my assistive tech which requires 4GB RAM to run smoothly. What are the true system requirements for CAD to run without freezing up the system? Is there any advice specific to assistive tech or visually impaired users? Is there a version which is more user friendly for continuously zooming in and out?

I would also like to know more about this. I've just been notified that I will have a student who is legally blind (however she used an iPad but no word yet on a laptop) who is enrolled in my beginners AutoCad class. I have no idea if AutoCad Architecture 2018 has any features to help in teaching this student.

I am not aware of any specific features for visually impaired which is why I'm planning on running assistive tech eg JAWS, ZoomText, alongside. Unfortunately these aren't optimised for design software, so it's a case of trial and error. They also need a lot of RAM to run so you will need a high spec desktop or laptop. I have tried to use photo editing, virtual labs, on standard laptops, but the constant panning, and zooming in and out causes eye strain and is rather frustrating so I'm not sure how your student will cope with an iPad. My setup consists of a 17 inch laptop connected to a 27 inch monitor to reduce the frequency of panning and zooming in and out. I also have an electronic magnifier that sits on the desk (it's called a CCTV, not to be confused with a security camera) to project any drawings, printed text onto the monitor or my laptop, depending on what I'm doing. I also have other magnification gadgets that can be connected to the laptop, monitor or a tablet. It's a case of suggesting all the available VI software and hardware to your student to find out what the preferred setup is. Not sure if you can customise the layout of the tools in AutoCad, but that may be helpful to your student if it's possible so that they can find all the tools they use most often easily without having to struggle searching as this can waste a ridiculous amount of time. Hopefully someone in the know will respond to our questions and shed some more light.

This is an issue, I'd say I5 should be minimum, with an I7 processor recommended. Jaws has really low specs, but the move from an I5 to an I7 processor results in a noticeable improvement in screen reader responsiveness.

Brian got the message - I base these specs on officially noted specs (I intentionally limited ideal systems to those produced from 2018 onwards for this reason). I would say 10th gen Core I3 or Ryzen 3 3000 or later to be acceptable although many factors in addition to processor specs can have an impact on application performance (including screen readers).

Without going into details (because I cover details elsewhere), a screen reader spends most of its time looking for events to process. The thing that drives screen readers is an event loop, a code fragment (not defined directly in NVDA but elsewhere; ask me offlist) or a giant loop responsible for fetching things to do unless an exit condition comes in. If a program the user is using is busy (say, you are typing a lot), the program would raise accessibility events to be picked up by accessibility API libraries, which is then fed to NVDA for processing inside its own event loop. When NvDA receives (technically, fetches) events, NVDA will use information such as event name, the control that raised the event, user settings, among other factors to translate and construct a unified view of what the just occurred event is so other parts of the screen reader and add-ons can handle it. You can see how NV Access and other NVDA contributors are thinking about events if you go through NVDA's advanced settings panel - a dedicated group of settings will determine how UI Automation events are handled (because over the years, the NVDA community have learned that some apps will literally (not joking) flood NVDA's event queue and loop by raising so many UIA events, affecting NVDA's performance in those apps).

In case of the original thread that started this topic (see the topic on Windows 11 and speech synthesizer response), in addition to hardware specs, I think the audio driver, power management settings, and the app being used can contribute to screen reader performance issues (and no, we're not going to start yet another debate on machine versus interpreted code, right?). For the purposes of this discussion, hardware specs matter, but when looking at the big picture, other factors are also involved.

This is highly environment dependant. The agency I work for, is replacing all Jaws users laptops with I7 versions, because the recent I5 ones experience a lot of lag and sluggishness with all the software that runs on them. The i7 machines definately feel more snappy and responsive, even with the I5s having the same amount of ram.

The processor system requirements for 11 though were largely arbitrary by Microsoft, and they permitted them to be bypassed as well. I know people running 11 on lower than eighth generation and those computers run quite well.

Not necesarily. Windows and other apps make use of the processor when you have more, as is the same for ram. The higher end laptops sustain higher CPU clocks without needing to throttle, and NVDA retains the responsiveness it has when you are doing other things, because of the more cores and higher clocks those cores have. This machine has a Ryzen 4800H, about the same as a 10th gen I7. The next machine I will get whenever this one is obsolete will be an I9/R9 which have become available.

It really isn't good to buy a computer where the ram and CPU usage is always close to 100%. As the system usage goes up, screen readers start to lag, and it throttles back and further cuts performance. The excess computing usage isn't a dead asset, it gives you options. If you're only using 3% CPU usage when watching videos, that is a good thing, and you can game on that computer, or do file conversions, or file compression/decompression etc, and it will tax the processor much more, and you can still work on it because of that. If you get a low end machine, with intigrated graphics instead of discrete graphics, you just placed the graphics processing onto the CPU, further hurting performance, and that machine now can't be used for gaming. That low end machine will be totally unusabl or annoying to use after a few years. If you want to do anything more than basic tasks, you now need a new computer. Budget systems also come with cheap components, also adversely affecting the quality of your computing experience. I earn money to improve my quality of life, and high end systems do just that.

A higher end machine is basicly future proof, and will feel more responsive in daily usage. It will run anything you need, as long as it doesn't fail or MS doesn't stop supporting it. I disagree with the wasted money. If you buy a high end machine, and keep it for 6-7 years, that is better than buying three midrange or low end machines in the same timeframe and dealing with inferior computing experiences.

As for phones, there are good reasons to get flagships. For blind users, the flagship Iphones have better audio quality and have more ram/processing power, which is relevant for screen readers. Carriers generally offer in the US trade in programs where you exchange your device every two years and get almost all of the new device price discounted. If you're paying for the plan anyway, this makes more financial sense, than keeping it for five years and paying full price again out of pocket. The flagships have specs that aren't evident on paper, as the audio quality. I got the pro max for the much better battery life. That was worth a couple hundered extra dollars to me. When I go on international trips, the phone was still at 60% after more than two days on the road. Not having to constantly charge your phone is worth a high price if you go on long extended international trips abroad that take a long time.

This is a false assumption. A screen reader taxes the processor and anything else that taxes it causes it to lock up. That is why at my job screen reader users are getting higher spec machines, and it makes a world of difference sorry.

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