Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are
using ISE 9.1.
Could you post your experience here?
Antii what do you think?
Is really 6 time faster?

I tryed unsuccesfully to use ISE 9.1 SP1...unfortunately in my case
the tool crashed with the message error: "Runtime error"
I tryed a few time unsuccesfully.... Now I'm back on ISE 8.2


Thanks eveybody,
Francesco

PS: please post here even if you are using Webpack 9.1

I've had no problems so far, 9.1.01i.

My design isn't huge - less than half an XC3S1600E - so my compile times 
aren't what are focused on with the speed improvements.  Things did appear a 
little faster but that may also be because of my tuning the timing numbers 
recently to make things cleaner in my design.

One thing I did notice that looked different (maybe is was, maybe it wasn't) 
is when the timing was met (Timing Score 0) another quick step was also 
executed (Timing Score 0) perhaps as a visit to a "cleanup pass" that used 
to be a good part of the Place & Route.  It's only an extra 15 seconds in my 
8 minutes or so of Place & Route time.  If it's a cleanup, it's much 
appreciated.

I don't use XST so I don't have any indication there.  My flow comes in from 
SynplifyPro Edif and goes out with a promgen-generated .bin file.  I had 
more of a hiccup (small as it was) with SynplifyPro 8.8 than with ISE 
9.1.01i.

- John_H


"Francesco" <f...@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1...@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are using ISE 9.1.
> Could you post your experience here?
> Antii what do you think?
> Is really 6 time faster?
>
> I tryed unsuccesfully to use ISE 9.1 SP1...unfortunately in my case
> the tool crashed with the message error: "Runtime error"
> I tryed a few time unsuccesfully.... Now I'm back on ISE 8.2
>
>
> Thanks eveybody,
> Francesco
>
> PS: please post here even if you are using Webpack 9.1
> 

Hi all,

ISE9.1i is faster than ISE8.2i and I noticed improvement for gate
count (improvement of XST). Smart Guide is interesting but  partition
still have bug (like ISE8.2 with the "horrible" port.main.h crash !).
Anyway, no hesitation, forget 8.2 and use 9.1i.

I've just started using ISE 9.1 sp1 and have
mixed results.  I don't
have
a lot of hours on it yet, but so far it seems to be a bit better than
8.1, but it still has serious bugs.

a) the 'compile' time seems to be a bit faster, my V4 design used to
take
about 3 hours, now its down to 2++ hours.

b) SmartGuide appears to be broken for my design.  I get various
system
crashes or unable to route messages.  If I do a pass without
SmartGuide,
it took about 2++ hours to Synthesize, Build, Map, Par, and Generate
programming file.  With SmartGuide, it died after over *** 5 Hours ***

c) Impact appears to have bugs in changing th target directory for ACE
files.

d) I'm still seeing various complaints from the s/w about bad database
or internal
errors.

Xilinx still needs to do SERIOUS bug fixing.


John Providenza

By the way - the new "Project | Source
Control" menu item looks compelling. 
I was able to generate a .tcl script which may be able to fully recreate the 
.ise file.  I haven't tried to completely recreate a project from scratch, 
but the idea is compelling.  I did export just the .tcl files without the 
extra suggested files and was able to import from that _impot.tcl script 
into a different directory to include all the paths I specified originally. 
I like it.

9.1.01i has at least one more bell or whistle!


"John_H" <n...@johnhandwork.com> wrote in message 
news:1...@corp.supernews.com...
> I've had no problems so far, 9.1.01i.
>
> My design isn't huge - less than half an XC3S1600E - so my compile times 
> aren't what are focused on with the speed improvements.  Things did appear 
> a little faster but that may also be because of my tuning the timing 
> numbers recently to make things cleaner in my design.
>
> One thing I did notice that looked different (maybe is was, maybe it 
> wasn't) is when the timing was met (Timing Score 0) another quick step was 
> also executed (Timing Score 0) perhaps as a visit to a "cleanup pass" that

> used to be a good part of the Place & Route.  It's only an extra 15 
> seconds in my 8 minutes or so of Place & Route time.  If it's a cleanup, 
> it's much appreciated.
>
> I don't use XST so I don't have any indication there.  My flow comes in 
> from SynplifyPro Edif and goes out with a promgen-generated .bin file.  I 
> had more of a hiccup (small as it was) with SynplifyPro 8.8 than with ISE 
> 9.1.01i.
>
> - John_H
>
>
> "Francesco" <f...@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
> news:1...@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are using ISE 9.1.
>> Could you post your experience here?
>> Antii what do you think?
>> Is really 6 time faster?
>>
>> I tryed unsuccesfully to use ISE 9.1 SP1...unfortunately in my case
>> the tool crashed with the message error: "Runtime error"
>> I tryed a few time unsuccesfully.... Now I'm back on ISE 8.2
>>
>>
>> Thanks eveybody,
>> Francesco
>>
>> PS: please post here even if you are using Webpack 9.1
>>
>
> 

Francesco wrote:
> Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are using ISE 9.1.
> Could you post your experience here?

I just got my full version of ISE (not webpack) and tried routing my 
current design. As part of the design, I use the DCM Standby workaround. 
I can import all the DCM Standby code into the GUI, but XST gives an 
error saying that there are missing modules. I opened a webcase, and my 
tech support person gets the same error that I do.

---
Joe Samson
Pixel Velocity

I was just evaluating 9.1 (Webpack). I'm using
small S3 and I have to
wonder if Xilinx is just doing optimization(s) for high end parts. For
my design, running in XC3S50, performance (both area and speed)
degraded. I'm using a "make" driven flow and the settings (command
line args and files) are the same for both 9.1/8.2 runs (actually I
use a flow that I put togheter in 7.1 days or so).

Data from *syr:
8.2.03i - xst I.34:
 Number of Slices:                     713  out of    768    92%
 Number of Slice Flip Flops:           428  out of   1536    27%
 Number of 4 input LUTs:              1306  out of   1536    85%
    Number used as logic:             1258
    Number used as RAMs:                48

9.1i - xst J.30:
 Number of Slices:                     696  out of    768    90%
 Number of Slice Flip Flops:           428  out of   1536    27%
 Number of 4 input LUTs:              1268  out of   1536    82%
    Number used as logic:             1220
    Number used as RAMs:                48

Data from *par:
8.2.03i par I.34
   Number of RAMB16s                         4 out of 4     100%
   Number of Slices                  699 out of 768    91%
      Number of SLICEMs               24 out of 384     6%

9.1i par J.30
   Number of RAMB16s                         4 out of 4     100%
   Number of Slices                        753 out of 768    98%
      Number of SLICEMs                     24 out of 384     6%

Data from *twr:
8.2.03i:
Timing errors: 0  Score: 0

Constraints cover 100721 paths, 0 nets, and 5844 connections

Design statistics:
   Minimum period:  19.976ns   (Maximum frequency:  50.060MHz)

9.1i:
Timing errors: 1  Score: 325

Constraints cover 101771 paths, 0 nets, and 5659 connections

Design statistics:
   Minimum period:  20.650ns   (Maximum frequency:  48.426MHz)

Run time for my flow:
8:2
      420.14 real       343.23 user         6.20 sys
9.1
      420.73 real       343.84 user         6.07 sys

I did not spend a lot of time in reading the new documentation for xst/
map/par to look for new switches/setting. If you are aware of eny
please comment.

It seems the bit stream generated with 9.1 is running just fine in my
applications (one data point, no temp/voltage/corners).

---
Regards,
mmihai

Francesco wrote:
> Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are using ISE 9.1.
> Could you post your experience here?
Because of my 9.1i problem with synthesis, I'm back to 8.1i. Now the 
console window in the ISE GUI doesn't automatically scroll correctly. 
What should be happening is that new text appears on the bottom line of 
the console window, and the old text scrolls off the top of the window. 
Instead, the display is frozen in one place, and I have to constantly 
scroll down to see the new text. Is there a registry setting that 
controls this, because it doesn't seem to be a preference in 8.1i.

---
Joe Samson
Pixel Velocity

Joseph Samson wrote:
> Francesco wrote:
>> Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are using ISE 9.1.
>> Could you post your experience here?
> Because of my 9.1i problem with synthesis, I'm back to 8.1i. Now the 
> console window in the ISE GUI doesn't automatically scroll correctly. 
> What should be happening is that new text appears on the bottom line of 
> the console window, and the old text scrolls off the top of the window. 
> Instead, the display is frozen in one place, and I have to constantly 
> scroll down to see the new text. Is there a registry setting that 
> controls this, because it doesn't seem to be a preference in 8.1i.
> 
> ---
> Joe Samson
> Pixel Velocity

I remember on service pack of the software that had display problems. 
Changing from a display that forces you to the bottom of the log (so 
far) when you're trying to review information so far was a HUGE 
improvement.  If you try the latest service pack for 8.1 or consider 
going to the latest 8.x service pack and release you will be MUCH better 
off all around, not just for the display issue.

No major differences here between, ISE 8.2i and
9.1i
Well got ChipScopPro 9.1 runnig on my Win2k3 Server. Which was not
possible with ISE 8.2i

Bye Helmut

On 2 Feb., 15:50, "Francesco" <francesco_poder...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi, I'm just wondering how many people here are using ISE 9.1.
> Could you post your experience here?
> Antii what do you think?
> Is really 6 time faster?
>
> I tryed unsuccesfully to use ISE 9.1 SP1...unfortunately in my case
> the tool crashed with the message error: "Runtime error"
> I tryed a few time unsuccesfully.... Now I'm back on ISE 8.2
>
> Thanks eveybody,
> Francesco
>
> PS: please post here even if you are using Webpack 9.1