Modelsim XE, what's the latest version?

I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
Xilinx? How is the performance?

I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I use?

Thanks for your info.

Frank

"Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:432e70c9$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
> on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
> Xilinx? How is the performance?
>
> I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I use?
>
> Thanks for your info.
>
> Frank
>
>
>

BTW, I am dumb, so I need GUI to view waveforms during debugging.

Forget Modelsim for Xilinx as its knobbled for large designs.. they want you
to buy the full version

Simon

"Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:432e714e@news.starhub.net.sg...
>
> "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:432e70c9$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> > I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
> > on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
> > Xilinx? How is the performance?
> >
> > I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I use?
> >
> > Thanks for your info.
> >
> > Frank
> >
> >
> >
>
> BTW, I am dumb, so I need GUI to view waveforms during debugging.
>
>
>

I use Modelsim MXE Starter.  The full version is expensive!  What would
you suggest to use instead, Simon?

I use Modelsim at work so I'm familiar with it, and my own personal
designs aren't very large, so I haven't ran into that "speed-limiter"
the free version has.  Eventually, I suspect I will, and I'm not
looking forward to it.

Simon Peacock wrote:
> Forget Modelsim for Xilinx as its knobbled for large designs.. they want you
> to buy the full version
>
> Simon
>
> "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:432e714e@news.starhub.net.sg...
> >
> > "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:432e70c9$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> > > I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
> > > on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
> > > Xilinx? How is the performance?
> > >
> > > I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I use?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your info.
> > >
> > > Frank
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > BTW, I am dumb, so I need GUI to view waveforms during debugging.
> >
> >
> >

Thank you Simon. I am doing my opencores design on my home PC
as a passtime, so I intend to spend no extra $ only time on it. How does
Icarus & IVI combination perform? My design is 10K and vcd dump
is as large as 50MB.




"Simon Peacock" <simon$actrix.co.nz> wrote in message
news:432e8c2a$1@news2.actrix.gen.nz...
> Forget Modelsim for Xilinx as its knobbled for large designs.. they want
you
> to buy the full version
>
> Simon
>
> "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:432e714e@news.starhub.net.sg...
> >
> > "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:432e70c9$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> > > I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
> > > on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
> > > Xilinx? How is the performance?
> > >
> > > I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I
use?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your info.
> > >
> > > Frank
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > BTW, I am dumb, so I need GUI to view waveforms during debugging.
> >
> >
> >
>
>

Thank you Simon. I am doing my opencores design on my home PC
as a passtime, so I intend to spend no extra $ only time on it. How does
Icarus & IVI combination perform? My design is 10K and vcd dump
is as large as 50MB.




"Simon Peacock" <simon$actrix.co.nz> wrote in message
news:432e8c2a$1@news2.actrix.gen.nz...
> Forget Modelsim for Xilinx as its knobbled for large designs.. they want
you
> to buy the full version
>
> Simon
>
> "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:432e714e@news.starhub.net.sg...
> >
> > "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:432e70c9$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> > > I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
> > > on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
> > > Xilinx? How is the performance?
> > >
> > > I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I
use?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your info.
> > >
> > > Frank
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > BTW, I am dumb, so I need GUI to view waveforms during debugging.
> >
> >
> >
>
>

Thank you Simon. I am doing my opencores design on my home PC
as a passtime, so I intend to spend no extra $ only time on it. How does
Icarus & IVI combination perform? My design is 10K and vcd dump
is as large as 50MB.




"Simon Peacock" <simon$actrix.co.nz> wrote in message
news:432e8c2a$1@news2.actrix.gen.nz...
> Forget Modelsim for Xilinx as its knobbled for large designs.. they want
you
> to buy the full version
>
> Simon
>
> "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:432e714e@news.starhub.net.sg...
> >
> > "Frank" <Francis.invalid@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:432e70c9$1@news.starhub.net.sg...
> > > I had 2003 version on my PC, but it's giving me performance hassles
> > > on yesterday's simulations. What is the latest version of Modelsim for
> > > Xilinx? How is the performance?
> > >
> > > I am writing a 20K+ design for opencores, what free simulator can I
use?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your info.
> > >
> > > Frank
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > BTW, I am dumb, so I need GUI to view waveforms during debugging.
> >
> >
> >
>
>

I can't really recommend IVI.  It it's definitely not easy to use or
particularly stable.  I'm also not a tremendous fan of Icarus.  The
last version I used 0.8.1 (I think) had a memory leak so the
performance was abysmal.  It was far outpaced by the slowed down
modelsim XE.

If you can't spend money, I recommend gpl cver and gtk wave.  They
aren't great, but they'll do the trick.  I find cver to be slower than
modelsim by a fair bit, but it's faster once the limit is exceeded.

http://www.pragmatic-c.com/gpl-cver/
http://home.nc.rr.com/gtkwave/

I must give the warning that gtkwave loads the whole vcd into memory
and then some, so if you're opening 300MB VCD files, you really need to
have at least 1 GB of memory (maybe more).  I know I have 768MB and it
thrashed until I killed it.

There is no way you are going to get a free tool with a gui like
modelsim.  Heck, most commercial tools don't have guis like modelsim.
As far as I know vcs and ncverilog don't have nice guis.  With those
tools you do everything on the command line.

Good luck,
Arlen

Thank you for the information. I will try that later.

Frank




"gallen" <arlencox@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127194129.436216.289820@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I can't really recommend IVI.  It it's definitely not easy to use or
> particularly stable.  I'm also not a tremendous fan of Icarus.  The
> last version I used 0.8.1 (I think) had a memory leak so the
> performance was abysmal.  It was far outpaced by the slowed down
> modelsim XE.
>
> If you can't spend money, I recommend gpl cver and gtk wave.  They
> aren't great, but they'll do the trick.  I find cver to be slower than
> modelsim by a fair bit, but it's faster once the limit is exceeded.
>
> http://www.pragmatic-c.com/gpl-cver/
> http://home.nc.rr.com/gtkwave/
>
> I must give the warning that gtkwave loads the whole vcd into memory
> and then some, so if you're opening 300MB VCD files, you really need to
> have at least 1 GB of memory (maybe more).  I know I have 768MB and it
> thrashed until I killed it.
>
> There is no way you are going to get a free tool with a gui like
> modelsim.  Heck, most commercial tools don't have guis like modelsim.
> As far as I know vcs and ncverilog don't have nice guis.  With those
> tools you do everything on the command line.
>
> Good luck,
> Arlen
>

gallen wrote:.
>
> As far as I know vcs and ncverilog don't have nice guis.  With those
> tools you do everything on the command line.

NC-Verilog has a GUI.  You can invoke it with the +gui option to
ncverilog, or the -gui option to ncsim.