What processors will work with ETS realtime on a PC?

[BruceAmmons]

I know the official documentation indicates that you need to use a Pentium 4 processor.  When I looked at the Ardence website, they indicate that ETS will work with almost any processor.  I am wondering if LabVIEW took some shortcuts that limited the realtime to the Pentium 4.

I ask for two reasons.  I would like to convert an old Pentium 2 computer to a realtime machine for test purposes, and I am wondering if it would work.  I would have to invest in a compatible network card to do the conversion, so I would like to know the odds of success before I spend the money.

I would also like to know if I am limited to the Pentium 4 when I buy a new machine for a customer.  If it will work with other processors, that really opens up the options when selecting a machine which could drastically reduce the price.  I would like to know if Celerons, Pentium M, etc. are compatible.  Are there some rules for which ones will work?  And how about other brands - AMD, etc.?

Thanks,

Bruce

[DavidEngr]

Hi Bruce,

First of all, thanks for your ongoing contributions to this forum.  The answers you provide to other users are much appreciated.

If you're looking at non-Pentium 4 computers for a desktop ETS machine, you'll want to consider a few things.  Although it may work on a Pentium 2 (or Celeron, AMD, etc), all of the testing and validation was done on Pentium 4 machines because that was the technology that was most recently available at the time desktop ETS was being developed.  The main drawback I'm aware of is that the timed loop in LabVIEW has the option to use a 1 MHz clock, which is only available on Pentium 3 and later machines.  Also, if you're considering hosting shared variables on the ETS target, you'll probably want a faster processor simply for better performance.

Best regards,

[BruceAmmons]

If I understand correctly, it will work about 99% on other processors, perhaps 100%.  I will go ahead and order the network card so I can convert the old computer for experimenting.  I guess there is no way to know if a certain feature is going to work unless you test it.

For customer systems I will keep to faster processors, but it sounds like the Celeron, Pentium D, or AMD would most likely work just fine.  I will probably stick with Intel since the variations are probably a lot smaller than between brands.

Thanks,

Bruce

[DavidEngr]

Well Bruce,

It seems I replied a bit too soon.  This document was just updated literally a few hours ago.  This should give you a little more peace of mind when working with those Celerons and AMDs.

Best regards,

[BruceAmmons]

David,

Thanks for the update.  I also realized that the Pentium D is a dual core processor, which is not compatible with RT.  The list of processors in the revised document will be very useful when selecting a computer.

Bruce

[chatonda]

David,

While the document pointed to by the link tells us about the systems that are supported, it is silent on the format, boot, and safemode disks that are needed to setup ETS on a desktop. To the best of my knowledge, these have not been updated since August'04. If this is the case, how is the new hardware going to be supported/recognized without updating these three disks? Or should I assume that I can create these three disks from MAX?

When I started using ETS with LV 7.1, I just assumed that the format, boot, and safemode disks created from MAX would do the trick (because it doesn't say otherwise anywhere) and only found out that this was not the case after I called NI following hours of frustration.

Thanks,

Chatonda Mtika

Algis Corp;, Vancouver, Canada

[DavidEngr]

Hi Chatonda,

When setting up a desktop PC for ETS, you should use the boot disks that are included with the purchase of the LabVIEW RT Deployment License for Desktop PCs.  These are different from the PXI boot disks that are created from MAX.  Using the included disks should allow you to install ETS on an AMD / Celeron machine as well.

Best regards,

[chatonda]

David,

Guess what? I received the entire LV 8.0 suite, including RT, but no disks were included. It was the same story with LV 7.1. What is also interesting is that the only place where NI mentions that disks created from MAX are no good is in the RT CD. The only reason I read that is because I was frustrated, so I decided to explore the RT CD. Perhaps what could be useful is that NI include the disks with the RT CD, as it is claimed in the RT CD. It's much more convenient that pointing someone to the NI ftp site and asking them to download the disks from there, like I had to do (and most likely will have to do for 8.0).

Thanks,

Chatonda Mtika

Algis Corp

Vancouver, Canada