RTX2011 Real-Time Extension for Windows Updated

New features for multicore soft control architecture

Intervalzero’s leading multicore, deterministic real-time extension for Windows has been updated with the introduction of Service Pack 1.

New features for the soft control architecture, which allows the replacement of dedicated DSP and FPGA hardware with multicore x86, include support for Intel’s Advance Vector Extension (AVX), a 256-bit instruction set extension to Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) designed for applications that are floating point intensive.

Intel released AVX earlier this year as part of the Sandy Bridge processor family. Its wider vectors, new extensible syntax, and rich functionality improve the performance of general purpose applications such as image, audio/video processing, medical systems, industrial automation, and scientific simulations. The addition of AVX support allows RTX developers to fully leverage the Sandy Bridge architecture to maximize system performance while minimizing system costs and shortening time to market.

By leveraging the RTX real-time extension for Windows' tight integration with the Windows environment, along with its native SMP support on x86 multicore multiprocessors, OEMs move the hard real-time control logic, such as programmable logic control, motion logic, and digital media algorithms, from specialized hardware components to software components.

RTX 2011 SP1 is supported on Windows 7, up through SP1; Windows Embedded Standard 7, up through SP1; Windows Vista, up through SP2; Windows XP SP3; and Windows Embedded Standard 2009. RTX 2011 SP1 supports systems with up to 32 processors and has six Runtime editions, offering customers multiple options for choosing the level of SMP functionality required for their embedded systems.

Other highlights in SP1 include:

• RTX now supports SSE exception handling. SSE exceptions are controlled by the SIMD status and control register.
• RTX Installer now allows users to configure the number of Windows and RTSS processors on a multiprocessor system.
• RTX now allows greater control of the RTX local memory pool. The automatic expansion of the local memory pool can now be disabled. If automatic expansion is enabled, users can select the minimum amount of memory by which to expand the pool. Also, developers have the ability to force the pool size increase if needed by calling RtExpandLocalMemory. This allows developers to control when non-deterministic behavior happens.
• The Rt8257x and Rt82580 drivers, released earlier this year as stand-alone downloads, are now included in the product installation.
• The RtE1000 driver now supports the 82571 EB Intel Pro 1000 PT Quad Port LP Server adapter.
• RTX managed code now provides a pointer to the shared memory region in addition to the streaming functions. This allows managed code to access the shared memory directly using unsafe pointers.
• A help button, menu item and F1 support for all RTX tools provides user with access to relevant documentation as needed.

RTX2011 SP1 is available immediately to users under support contract.