X-Series support update?

[Stijn]

Joe, there's definitely an audience larger then three; at least four ;] two days ago I ordered an X-series card to build a quick proof-of-concept system, received it today, only to find out today I misread and this is not yet supported by the DDK (bonks head on desk). So I really hope it will be available soon.

One question though: will the DDK work without having to update the OS interface? We're evalutaing some RT systems (Tenasys INTime, IntervalZero RTX) and I hope I don't have to wait for them to provide a new interface..

[JoeFriedchicken]

Yes, the OS Interface component will require changes. E and M Series devices had two BARs: BAR0 for the MITE and BAR1 for the STC/STC2. X Series devices feature the STC3, which has only one BAR0. The updates we have ready also add support for 64-bit kernels 🙂

See my post in this thread from April 6th for a few more details:
http://forums.ni.com/t5/Driver-Development-Kit-DDK/X-Series-support-update/m-p/1514278#M1904

[JoeFriedchicken]

Greetings, programs!

It's the Friday before a long weekend (in Austin), and so I thought I should post an update since it's been three weeks (and near the end of the month).

The tone of this post is a bit bright because I built the release candidate today 😄

Here's what's left:

• confirm the last bug is fixed
• regression testing
• documentation signoff (eg all edits are done, and so we just need to glance over it once it's been sent through the publishing apps)
• web upload

So: the code is done, but the web release isn't. Subscribe to the thread for the release announcement!

[JoeFriedchicken]

Hi everyone, I have another update 🙂 Let me mark up my last one...

Here's what's left:

• confirm the last bug is fixed
• regression testing
• documentation signoff (The documenation team is processing the PDF source for publication.)
• web upload (I'm currently working with the web team to create the download page.)

[sar]

Joe --

Many thanks for keeping us up-to-date on the status of X-Series support in the MHDDK.

I'm excited about the possibility of bringing our getting-long-in-the-tooth vision science app

into the 21st century with the help of the PCIe-6363 and X-Series support in the MHDDK.

Our app uses a venerable E-Series device (PCI-6070E, formerly PCI-MIO-16E1) for analog

signal acquisition, and (don't laugh) two ISA boards for analog output (AT-AO-6/10) and 

DIO with DI event timestamping (custom).

After perusing the X Series manual, I see the possibility of performing all of the functions

handled by these three ancient boards with a single PCIe-6363. One question, though:

Will your X-Series support include register information/examples to take advantage of the

DI change detection circuitry? MHDDK support for M-Series does not cover DI change 

detection, so I'm hoping it will be different for X-Series.

[BTW, we probably cannot use the standard NI-DAQmx, because we have a modest

"real-time" constraint. Our experiment engine runs tightly in a 1-ms loop, and we must have

assurance that our visual stimuli stay aligned with the acquired response data... The 

current app runs under Windows XP/RTX 6.5.1...]

Thanks again for your hard work on X Series in the MHDDK. I'm looking forward to

the initial release.

Cheers,

Scott

[JoeFriedchicken]

---

sar wrote:

After perusing the X Series manual, I see the possibility of performing all of the functions handled by these three ancient boards with a single PCIe-6363. One question, though:

Will your X-Series support include register information/examples to take advantage of the DI change detection circuitry? MHDDK support for M-Series does not cover DI change detection, so I'm hoping it will be different for X-Series.

---

In a word: yes.

One of the digital input examples demonstrates how to configure the device for change detection (both rising and falling edge) using DMA for data transfer. Like the other DDK distributions, the X Series DDK will not demonstrate interrupts, but the funcationality is exposed and documented.

[JoeFriedchicken]

Hi everyone, I have another update 🙂 Let me mark up my last one...

Here's what's left:

• confirm the last bug is fixed
• regression testing
• documentation signoff (The documenation team is processing the PDF source for publication.)
• web upload (I'm currently working with the web team to create finalize the download page.)

[JoeFriedchicken]

Hi everyone, I have another update 🙂

There are only three edits left for the download page. With NIWeek coming soon, the web folks are a bit distracted by larger projects :-S

[JoeFriedchicken]

The Measurement Hardware Driver Development Kit (MHDDK) [1] has been updated to include support for X Series DAQ devices and is now available for download. The MHDDK provides development tools and a register-level programming (RLP) interface for NI data acquisition hardware for writing a custom device driver.

Included in the update:

• X Series plugin device support (PCIe/PXIe 632x, 634x, 635x, 636x, 637x)
• X Series RLP documentation (device theory of operation, programming best practices, register documentation)
• X Series register maps for custom code generation
• 28 examples demonstrating AI, AO, DIO, and counter IO operations on X Series devices
• Scatter-gather DMA with optimized PCIe bus throughput for X Series devices
• 64-bit kernel support (for VISA and Linux kernel module OS interface implementations)
• More information is available in the readme [2]

The MHDDK is a licensed source distribution. You must read and accept the license agreement [3] before downloading documentation or source code.

[1] NI MHDDK Product Page
http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/11737

[2] NI MHDDK readme
http://ftp.ni.com/evaluation/labview/ekit/other/downloader/readme.html

[3] NI MHDDK License Agreement and Download
https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-16444 

[Stijn]

I've been playing around with the latest version and so far it works out very well: I'm now using a PXI rack connected via MXI; software running on InTime that syncs both cards and captures 16+32 analog inputs using DMA + outputs some of the signals again. Everything (AI, AO, DI and DO) is perfectly in sync between cards and I can get pretty low latencies without problems. Awesome.