This document provides specific guidelines regarding the requirements and installation instructions for LabVIEW Real-Time and LabWindows™/CVI Real-Time on a desktop PC.
The mark LabWindows is used under a license from Microsoft Corporation. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.
The LabVIEW Real-Time Module and LabWindows/CVI Real-Time Module support using desktop PCs as real-time targets running Phar Lap ETS. The conversion process includes checking for supported hardware and software, formatting the hard drive of the target to FAT32, and running the LabVIEW Real-Time Module PC Evaluator. A LabVIEW Real-Time Debug/Deploy License is required for each target machine. NI does not recommend a specific set of hardware components for a desktop PC to be used as real-time target. The reason for this is twofold. First, different manufacturer revisions of the same model number do not necessarily have the same components. Second, we would like customer feedback on what works well. This allows for greater testing and larger selection of supported hardware.
NOTE: NI is not currently planning on supporting conversion of desktop PCs to NI Linux Real-Time targets. Conversion of desktop PCs to Phar Lap ETS targets is supported. However, NI will remove support for Phar Lap for cRIO in the NI 2020 Software Release and for PXI in the NI 2022 Software Release. For more information, please see the Phar Lap RT OS EOL Road Map.
NI cannot guarantee that the configuration of 3rd-party computer systems will not change over time. Therefore, NI provides a list of LabVIEW Real-Time compatible components rather than recommending specific 3rd-party systems. These requirements must be met by the computer system in order to run LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI Real-Time.
The table below lists the supported processors for the different Real-Time versions. In the chart below, LabVIEW Real-Time version 7.1 supports only Intel® Pentium® 3 and Intel® Pentium® 4 processors. All later version of LabVIEW Real-Time also support the Intel® Pentium® 3 and Intel® Pentium® 4.
LabVIEW Real-Time version | Processors supported |
---|---|
7.1+ | Intel® Pentium® 3 Intel® Pentium® 4 |
8.0+ | Intel® Celeron® Intel® Pentium® M AMD Athlon™ 64 AMD Athlon™ XP |
8.5+ | Intel® Core 2 family of processors Intel® Pentium® D Intel® Multi-core Xeon® AMD Multi-core Opteron® |
2010+ | Intel® Core i3 Intel® Core i5 Intel® Core i7 |
2011+ | Intel® Core i3 (Sandy Bridge architecture) Intel® Core i5 (Sandy Bridge architecture) Intel® Core i7 (Sandy Bridge architecture) AMD Quad-Core A6-Series APUs |
2012+ | Intel® Core i3 (Ivy Bridge architecture) Intel® Core i5 (Ivy Bridge architecture) Intel® Core i7 (Ivy Bridge architecture) |
2014+ | Intel® Core i3 (Haswell architecture) Intel® Core i5 (Haswell architecture) Intel® Core i7 (Haswell architecture) |
NOTE The 2014+ hardware architectures have been tested and confirmed to work with LabVIEW 2018.. NI does not plan on testing new RT PC compatible hardware for future version of LabVIEW.
A network adapter with a supported ethernet chipset is required. The adapter can be integrated with the motherboard or PCI. Network interface card (NIC) chipset manufacturers may produce various configurations of a given NIC with an identical model number. Some NICs will have a model number different from the installed chipset. To check if your NIC is a supported chipset, review the specifications section for the NIC to determine the embedded chipset. If you are using a separate NIC and want to disable the built-in one, do so in the BIOS.
In the table below, the model number may be followed by the product ID (also known as chipset ID or model ID) in quotes. Note that if an ID is listed for a given model, only chipsets with that ID will be supported. For more information on the model ID of a particular chipset, look in the product specifications or contact the manufacturer.
LabVIEW Real-Time Version | Supported Ethernet Chipsets |
---|---|
7.1+ | Intel® 82557 Intel® 82558 Intel® 82559 "0x1229" Intel® 82559er "0x1209" Intel® 82551 NI-PCI-8232 GPIB/Gigabit Ethernet |
8.0+ | Intel® 82550 Intel® 82540 Broadcom® BCM5751 "0x1677" |
8.2.1+ | Intel® 82573 |
8.5+ | Intel® InBusiness® 82559 "0x103A"82562em "0x2449" Intel® 82562et "0x1039" Intel® 82562etb "0x103B" Intel® Pro/100 VM "0x1033, 0x1034, 0x1038, 0x103C, 0x103E" Intel® Pro/100 VE "0x1032, 0x103D" Intel® 82801 CAM (ICH3) "0x1031, 0x1035, 0x1036, 0x1037" Intel® 82540EM "0x100E" Intel® 82541EI "0x1013" Intel® 82541EP "0x1018" Intel® 82541GI "0x1076" Intel® 82541GI-Mobile "0x1077" Intel® 82541ER "0x1078" Intel® 82573E/V "0x108B" Intel® 82573E/V w/AMT "0x108C" Intel® 82573L "0x109A" |
8.5.1+ | nVidia® nForce MCP nVidia® nForce MCP2 nVidia® nForce MCP3 nVidia® nForce 400 MCP4 nVidia® nForce 400 MCP5 nVidia® nForce 250 MCP6 nVidia® nForce MCP7 nVidia® nForce CK804 MCP8 nVidia® nForce CK804 MCP9 nVidia® nForce 430 MCP12 nVidia® nForce 430 MCP13 nVidia® nForce MCP04 nVidia® nForce MCP55 nVidia® nForce MCP61 nVidia® nForce MCP65 |
8.6+ | Intel® 82571xx Intel® 82572 - Quadport Intel® 82563EB Intel® 82567 "0x10BE" and "0x10F5" VLX Emulated Ethernet PXIe-8234 |
2009+ | Intel® 82574L CT "0x10D3" Intel® 82546EB PCI-X Ethernet "0x1010" Intel® 82546EB PCI-X Ethernet "0x1079" Intel® 82545EM PCI-X Ethernet "0x100F" Intel® 82545GM PCI-X Ethernet "0x1026" Intel® 82540EP_LP Ethernet "0x101E" Intel® 82545EM Ethernet "0x100F" Intel® 82545GM Ethernet "0x1026" Intel® 82572EI Ethernet "0x10B9" Intel® 4-port LP(2x82571EB) Ethernet "0x10BC" |
2010+ | Intel® PCH-LM 82577 (Hanksville) "0x10EA" Intel® PCH-LC 82577 (Hanksville) "0x10EB" Intel® PCH-DM 82577 (Hanksville) "0x10EF" Intel® PCH-DC 82577 (Hanksville) "0x10F0" Intel® 82541PI "0x107C" |
2011+ | Intel® 82577LM Intel® 82579LM* |
2012+ | Intel® 82579LM (Lewisville) Intel® 82579V (Lewisville) |
2014+ | Intel® I217-LM Gigabit Clarkville Ethernet Intel® I217-V Gigabit Clarkville Ethernet Intel® I210-AS Gigabit Ethernet Intel® I210-AT Gigabit Ethernet Intel® I210-CS Gigabit Ethernet Intel® I210-IS Gigabit Ethernet Intel® I210-IT Gigabit Ethernet |
*This Ethernet chipset is not natively supported by the LabVIEW 2011 Real-Time module. Support can be added by using the USB utilities and Ethernet drivers linked in the Downloads section. The attached drivers also include important patches; these drivers are recommended for all new Real-Time PCs. The readme file included in the ZIP file provides instructions for running the utilities.
An example of a board that carries the Intel® 82540 chipset is the NI-PCI-8232 GPIB/Gigabit Ethernet. An example of a commercially available board that carries the 82550 chipset is the Intel Pro/100 S.
All LabVIEW Real-Time versions support Parallel ATA in IDE while LabVIEW 8.5 (and above) and LabWindows/CVI RT 8.5 (and above) support Serial ATA only in AHCI. LabVIEW Real-Time and LabWindows/CVI RT versions prior to 8.5 do not support Serial ATA. LabVIEW Real-Time 8.6.1 and previous supports hard drives up to 126 GiB. LabVIEW Real-Time 2009 and above support hard drives up to 1.99 TiB. The following options may be available depending on the specific desktop PC.
LabVIEW Real-Time currently supports up to 4 GB (gigabytes) of RAM. In Real-Time 8.5 and previous, more than 2 GB of RAM will cause deployment errors. In LabVIEW Real-Time 8.5.1 through 2009 SP1, support is provided for systems with RAM greater than 2 GB, however the real-time operating system will only utilize 2 GB. LabVIEW Real-Time 2010 and later utilizes up to 4 GB.
The volt rails should be 3.3 and 5 volts on the motherboard. Some server class, industrial, or non-dell motherboards may lack the 3.3 volt rail required by NI M-Series boards. The BIOS may have a description of the power rails supported by the motherboard.
To install LabVIEW Real-Time on the desktop PC, you will need the following equipment
You have two options to boot LabVIEW Real-Time:
LabVIEW Real-Time 8.2.1 and previous and LabWindows/CVI Real-Time 8.2.1 and previous require that the BIOS include the PCI BIOS interface function set. Whether the BIOS includes PCI BIOS support is generally not specified on data sheets and may be difficult to determine. If the PCI BIOS interface function set is not present in the BIOS, LabVIEW Real-Time and LabWindows/CVI Real-Time will not be able to access PCI devices and will generally display an error that it failed to find and configure a network adapter. An example motherboard which does not include PCI BIOS support is the Intel® D915GEV. LabVIEW Real-Time 8.5 and LabWindows/CVI Real-Time 8.5 do not require that the BIOS include the PCI BIOS interface function set.
Disable hyper-threading in BIOS for any Intel processor that supports hyper-threading. If enabled, the Real-Time operating system will detect two cores per processor and may become unstable. Legacy USB must be enabled to find Desktop PC Utility USB drive. You may also need to set USB Emulation Mode to recognize USB drives as a hard drive.
It is possible to test the compatibility of an existing system with the LabVIEW Real-Time Module PC Evaluator. PCs that pass the test can be successfully converted into a LabVIEW Real-Time 8.5 (or later) target. The hard drive needs to be formatted to FAT32 before the software is used on the target PC.
Refer to Converting a Desktop PC to a LabVIEW Real-Time Target for step-by-step configuration instructions.
At the request of customers, NI has created a page hosting validated components for the current version of LabVIEW Real-Time. See NI Community page LabVIEW Real-Time Desktop ETS Validated Hardware Component List.