RT ETS or RTX?

[graduate student 44]

after asking my previous question, i realized that another option will be to run RT RTX instead of ETS on the host computer. what's the difference between the two? and which one i should consider using? i guess it'll break down to the same issue: does either ETS or RTX support 1)DAQ (or DAQmx) that is coded to read data from pxi-4472 cards on a pxi-1006 chassis? 2)tcp/ip?

[EdDickens]

Real Time RTX is made to run Real Time extensions on a desktop PC that is also running Windows. It does not run on a PXI system. More info on RTX can be found here.

The desktop must meet certain requirments and so far, only a handful of desktops are certified by NI to run the RTX extensions.

Ed

[GerardoG]

Hello,

With the release of the LabVIEW 7.1 Real-Time Module, we offer two choices for running real-time on a desktop PC.

Using ETS, you can convert a desktop into a dedicated real-time target that uses the same real-time operating system (the ETS RTOS) that the embedded RT PXI controllers and FieldPoint controllers use. You still need a seperate Windows machine to do development on. This RTOS supports the NI-DAQmx driver for PCI DAQ devices. This desktop works just like a PXI real-time controller.

You can connect this desktop to a PXI chassis using a MXI link, however, there are some performance hits that especially evident when doing single point I/O.

To find out which desktops are validated to run the ETS operating system go here.

The second option is LabVIEW Real-Time for RTX targets. This will allow a computer to run both Windows and a real-time operating system concurrently. As of this time LabVIEW Real-Time for RTX only supports RIO hardware such as the FPGA board, it does not support DAQmx. RTX will run on most PCs, including PXI controllers. 

Another good resource is this tutorial that explains the different choices for real-time systems. Let me know if this doesn't answer your question.

Regards,

Gerardo Garcia
LabVIEW Real-Time Marketing
National Instruments

[graduate student 44]

hi Gerardo,

thanks!

since RTX does not support DAQ, i have to run ETS if i decide to run RT at all.

so if i configure my pc to run ETS RTOS, can it still communiate (stream data from) with pxi-4472s, which are not running RT. the pxi chassis is directly connected to the RT ETS target PC. in short, does the RTOS support PXI DAQ devices?

also, does the new RTSO allow me to install other LV library on the RT target pc, e.g. hdf5 disk streaming vi's, some vi's that call on windows tcp dll's? thanks!