Improving Boot Time on Compact Fieldpoint

[Mattholemew]

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to improve the boot time of Compact Fieldpoint controllers?  Right now, I've got some not real complex code with 2-3 Loops (lots of shared variables, though).  It takes roughly 5-8 minutes for the loops to start running after the unit is powered on or rebooted.  After they start running, the performance is OK but not great.  I'm using a cfp-2020, but will be moving to a 2120 soon.

Thanks!

-Matt

[bburress]

Hey Matt,
    Are the shared variables being hosted on the Fieldpoint controller or on your PC?  With the 2020 having limited memory, hosting the shared variables on your PC should improve your boot time.  However, getting boot time < 1 minute will be somewhat difficult.  This issue is known, and has been submitted as a product suggestion based on this previous discussion forum post.  The 2120 has more memory than the 2020, and you should see an improvement on boot time once you start using that controller.

[Mattholemew]

The shared variables are hosted on the controller.  I need them to be hosted on the controller because I want the cfp to be semi-independent.  Time critical things still have to happen when the host computer is rebooting.

I've moved to the 2120 and am currently testing it.  Looks like the performance increases are dramatic, and I'm fixing to test the startup time again.  I'll post back with my results!

Thanks,

-Matt

[Mattholemew]

1.5 Minutes.... Pretty Impressive compared to 2020!

-Matt

[Graziano]

Hi Matt,
   I'm thinking about moving to a cFP-2120 to (currently I've a cFP-2020), so, can you report boot time? 1.5 minutes is only boot time, or boot time + initialization of application? Thanks!

graziano

[Mattholemew]

That's boot time plus initialization of applications: applications being around 4 loops that took ~5-10 minutes to initialize on the 2020.

Hope that helps!

-Matt

[bburress]

Hey Matt,
    Thanks for the benchmark numbers info.  It's always helpful to get this information out there in a public forum like this so other users can see the benefit of our new controllers.

[Wayne.C]

Matt,

Thanks for the info.  I'm getting ready to do a similar project with the variable server hosted on the cFP.

There is one other item that may affect how fast the cFP is up and ready to go.  Several other cFP users and myself have noticed that the first pass through our programs was taking a lot of time.  The fix was to add an empty file named fpremote.ini to the ni-rt\system directory of the cFP controller.  I do not know just how or why this works, but it does.

Here is a link to the original posting http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=110&message.id=4281&requireLogin=False

I would be very interested in knowing if this affects your boot up time.

[RavensFan]

I was also having problems on my cFP-2120 with the initial read on shared variables hosted on the cFP controller.  I was working with only about a dozen shared variables and seemed to take several minutes before all the variables were up to speed.  When I watched them on the variable manager, I could see them get their first values one at a time with about 5-8 seconds from one variable to the next.  The FPremote.ini tip that I had seen in a few threads did seem to help.  One comment I would add is that it didn't seem to take effect until after the controller was rebooted.

I would like to pose a few questions of an NI person as to why this file is needed?  It isn't logical that the absence or presence of an empty file would have any effect on the speed of the shared variable engine.  Are there any configuration settings that get added to it automatically?  Are there any settings to be added that have any meaning to the shared variable engine?  It appears to remain empty.

Has this behavior been documented as a bug within Labview or Fieldpoint?  It seems that if something as simple as adding an empty file to a directory improves performance, a Fieldpoint patch or upgrade should be put in the drivers in the quarterly service CD's to take care of this automatically.

There should probably be a knowledgebase article on this in the official NI website rather than just the threads in the forums addressing this issue.  I did a search for fpremote.ini from the NI home page and zero results came up.

Message Edited by Ravens Fan on 12-08-2006 07:54 PM

[Mattholemew]

Adding fpremote.ini may have sped up my system by a few seconds, but the speed increase in my case was only marginal.  I have several small shared variables and a few really large ones.  A few seconds per variable initialization time is what I'm seeing, too.

I agree that if fpremote.ini is some sort of fix that it should be documented, or the software should be patched.  Also, if there are any settings that we can learn about inside that ini file to tweak our fieldpoint's behavior, that would be nice, too.