Hello, I really hope the Materials Studio developer can see what I talk here.

I have beening using Materials Studio (usually, we call MS for short) for more than 12 years, since the year of 2011. So obviously, I am a loyal user and a staunch supporter of MS.

I built many chat groups which are for MS learning and discussion. So far, there are about 8,000 members in our chat groups. During the past years, I have been keeping talking and discussing with these group members. So I can well know what they are thinking and what they care about MS. 

Here, I just give some feedback from me and our group members. We hope the MS developer can hear what we care about. 

(1) DFT-D correction is important in DFT calculation. However we are disappointed to find that DMol3 and CASTEP can only support DFT-D2. Other DFT softwares, such as Gaussian, VASP, had supported DFT-D4 since several years ago. It was announced that CASTEP can support DFT-D4 since MS 2024, however it seems no this update for DMol3. Recent years, more and more users have quit using CASTEP and DMol3 and started to use VASP and Gaussian for replacement. 

(2) Many of us use Forcite to conduct MD simulation. When we talk about Forcite, we always say it runs too slow, especially, when it runs in windows system though using a GPU. We also find it is very difficult to calculate the model of >50,000 atoms since it will take much long time. Some other MD softwares, such LAMMPS, GROMACS, can calculate big models easier and faster. For example, in a recent MD running test, one used GROMACS to simulate a model containing ~one million (1,000,000) atoms with GPU acceleration. It was found it can complete a 100 ns MD simulation in only 24 hours! We are astonished by the testing results, since if we use Forcite to do the same thing, it may take 100 times of time! 

Recent years, more and more users only use MS to build models and use Forcite to assign forcefield, but run the MD simulation in LAMMPS or GROMACS, in stead of Forcite. One of main reason is that Forcite is too slow though it is very conveninet for use.

For the above feedback, we hope to hear the MS developers' opinions.