IC 5.0 Linux slow graphic

[Harald Neubauer]

Hi,
I'm now back to troubles.
I try to run ic5.0 (5.0.32.61) on a Redhat 8.0 Linux machine.
Running that works with medium speed until opening a waveform window.
If that opens, the graphical speed gets terrible slow. The mouse stops
every half second for a quater, wich makes it impossible to use. The
computer (2.8GHz PIV with 1GB) gets to a load of 5!
I then set this:
awvSetOptionValue("cursorSuppressed" t)
That makes it much better but still the mouse tends to freeze every
second and stops to move. An dof course i would like to user the
cursor in the waveform...
I though this should be corrected in this version?
I get some similar thing in layout, where scrolling through the layout
will also peridically stop.
Any thoughs on this?
BTW Xfree4.2 is running with 3 TFT attached.
Regards, Harald

 

[Harald Neubauer]

erikwanta@starband.net (Erik Wanta) wrote in message news:<84018314.0308050838.5e43aab4@posting.google.com>...

Harald:
I thought this was fixed in 5.0.0.500.38.

I think the latest ISR is 5.0.32.500.2.

Do you get 5.0.32.61 from icfb -W?
---
Erik

Yes:
icfb -W
sub-version 5.0.32.61
I still do not understand the numbering...
why is my number different from x.x.xx.xxx.x?
Mfg, Harald

 

[Andrew Beckett]

We aim to confuse ;-<

In the past, CD releases were in the form:

4.4.5.42
4.4.6.36
5.0.0.132

the release was generally known as the first three parts of this - e.g. IC445,
IC50 (missing off one of the zeros just for fun).

The hotfixes then used to always replace the last digit with 100.nn - except
that for IC50, we'd already passed 100, so had to use something else. So a new
standard of 500.nn was adopted. So IC50 hotfixes were:

5.0.0.500.nn

Recently we released a new "point release" model (which effectively replaces
the QSR/MSRs of old) - these are essentially going through the full release
cycle (alpha, beta, etc) with all production testing. They also may have
significant new functionality as opposed to QSRs and MSRs which used
to be mainly testing of the P0s that had cropped up in the previous months
of the hotfix stream. They are essentially part of the same major release,
so keep the first two digits. The numbering scheme of the point releases
is based on YR (Year followed by release number). So this would mean
that we have main CD point releases as:

5.0.YR.xx (xx is some number depending on how many builds of that release
were done before it got shipped). For example, the IC5032 release is:

5.0.32.61 (2003, release number 2. IC50 MSR3 was counted as the first one in
2003). Later in the year there with be IC5033 and IC5034, and then moving to
IC5041 next year etc.

When this arrives, the normal IC50 hotfixes stop, and start up as hotfixes
from IC5032, so they become:

5.0.32.500.nn

When IC5033 comes out, these hotfixes will stop, and hotfixes will start based
on IC5033, and so will be numbered:

5.0.33.500.nn

and the CD version of IC5033 will be something like 5.0.33.yy (yy is some
other sequential build number).

It's clear as mud, isn't it?

Andrew.


On 6 Aug 2003 07:21:48 -0700, haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote:

erikwanta@starband.net (Erik Wanta) wrote in message news:<84018314.0308050838.5e43aab4@posting.google.com>...
Harald:
I thought this was fixed in 5.0.0.500.38.

I think the latest ISR is 5.0.32.500.2.

Do you get 5.0.32.61 from icfb -W?
---
Erik


Yes:
icfb -W
sub-version 5.0.32.61
I still do not understand the numbering...
why is my number different from x.x.xx.xxx.x?
Mfg, Harald

--
Andrew Beckett
Senior Technical Leader
Custom IC Solutions
Cadence Design Systems Ltd

 

[Harald Neubauer]

Andrew Beckett <andrewb@DELETETHISBITcadence.com> wrote in message news:<5qb2jvslbmfddou3051d87r3uvll6gat3h@4ax.com>...

We aim to confuse ;-


It's clear as mud, isn't it?

Andrew.

Sorry Andrew,
but although reading that 2 times i didn't get that.
I cannot figure out which of the two suggestet versions is the newer one...
5.0.0.500.38. and 5.0.32.500.2
Should 5.0.0.500.38 be named 5.0.32.500.38 to have it consistent?

Anyway, i'm going to get a new version through our software managers...
Regards, Harald

 

[B]

Harald Neubauer wrote:

Hi,
I'm now back to troubles.
I try to run ic5.0 (5.0.32.61) on a Redhat 8.0 Linux machine.
Running that works with medium speed until opening a waveform window.
If that opens, the graphical speed gets terrible slow. The mouse stops
every half second for a quater, wich makes it impossible to use. The
computer (2.8GHz PIV with 1GB) gets to a load of 5!
I then set this:
awvSetOptionValue("cursorSuppressed" t)
That makes it much better but still the mouse tends to freeze every
second and stops to move. An dof course i would like to user the
cursor in the waveform...
I though this should be corrected in this version?
I get some similar thing in layout, where scrolling through the layout
will also peridically stop.
Any thoughs on this?
BTW Xfree4.2 is running with 3 TFT attached.
Regards, Harald
Hi Herald,

Are you able to run VCP on the above (ic5032/RH8)?
thanx

 

[Harald Neubauer]

B <bekeur@fnal.gov> wrote in message news:<bhg7h1$cps$1@info4.fnal.gov>...

Hi Herald,
Are you able to run VCP on the above (ic5032/RH8)?
thanx

Sorry, but what is VCP?

I now tried that on different machines..
On my laptop with an ATI graphics card everything seems to be fine.
Even getting me the newest? release (5.0.32.500.3) didn't solve the
Problem.
I suppose it could be the Matrox graphics card.
Anyone had Problems with that? I think its a Matrox 450 Dual-Head but
i have to check returning to office...
I will also try with a cheap Nvidia and report that...

Regards Harald

 

[B]

Harald Neubauer wrote:

B <bekeur@fnal.gov> wrote in message news:<bhg7h1$cps$1@info4.fnal.gov>...


Hi Herald,
Are you able to run VCP on the above (ic5032/RH8)?
thanx


Sorry, but what is VCP?

I now tried that on different machines..
On my laptop with an ATI graphics card everything seems to be fine.
Even getting me the newest? release (5.0.32.500.3) didn't solve the
Problem.
I suppose it could be the Matrox graphics card.
Anyone had Problems with that? I think its a Matrox 450 Dual-Head but
i have to check returning to office...
I will also try with a cheap Nvidia and report that...

Regards Harald
Sorry, I made a wrong assumption in addition to my question which

off topic.
VCP stands for virtuoso custom placer.
I am using ic5032/RH901 and was am interested in people
with same config so we can share experience.

 

[Harald Neubauer]

haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote in message news:<b9df4714.0308170232.3a6501a4@posting.google.com>...

I'm now quite sure, that there are severe problems with 24 bit and
linux as a desktop. We are running cadence remotely from a Sun on a
linux which works, and i'm trying to run that from a linux desktop,
which doesn't.
Contacting customer support didn't solve it, so i do NOT recommend
running cadence on a linux frontend at the moment... :-(
I think cadence should tell that, because figuring out that it's not
on our side took too much time. (I tried RH 7.2, RH 8.0, Xfree 4.2
Xfree 4.3 an a total of 4 different machines with different graphics
cards)

Regards, Harald

 

[Erik Wanta]

Harald:
What exactly are the problems that you are experiencing?
---
Erik

haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote in message news:<b9df4714.0308200110.494c565b@posting.google.com>...

haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote in message news:<b9df4714.0308170232.3a6501a4@posting.google.com>...

I'm now quite sure, that there are severe problems with 24 bit and
linux as a desktop. We are running cadence remotely from a Sun on a
linux which works, and i'm trying to run that from a linux desktop,
which doesn't.
Contacting customer support didn't solve it, so i do NOT recommend
running cadence on a linux frontend at the moment... :-(
I think cadence should tell that, because figuring out that it's not
on our side took too much time. (I tried RH 7.2, RH 8.0, Xfree 4.2
Xfree 4.3 an a total of 4 different machines with different graphics
cards)

Regards, Harald

 

[Andrew Beckett]

The official position is that RH9 is not supported. Look at the platform
support matrix under Support on http://www.cadence.com and you'll see that
for the IC releases, it's actually just RH7.2 that is supported.

In practice RH7.3 works fine, and RH8 works well enough. However, there need to
be some code fixes for a variety of tools to work correctly on RH9. At some
point this will happen.

The big problem (and this is purely my own opinion, nothing to do with Cadence)
is the ridiculously short lifecycle of RedHat releases. Cadence gets accused of
not supporting releases for long enough, but RH Linux versions are way shorter
lifed! Since there is a general policy of not changing the OS version that a
release is compiled on during it's life, it makes it very difficult to support.
That's not so say it's impossible - just difficult.

Andrew.

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:23:25 -0500, B <bekeur@fnal.gov> wrote:

Erik Wanta wrote:
B:
Is there a problem with VCP and RH9? If so, please post the problem.
----
Erik

Yes there is. I am unable to run it. The problem is simple, when you
call VCP (if you're not familiar with this; this done thru a
menu in VXL), VXL goes and check the version of VCP if this version
is less than 11.0.9 and you're running ic50.x, it exits with an
error message and VCP fails to execute.
I already reported the problem and opened a case but to no avail. They
did not say it explicitly but I have the impression that as I am using
RH9 I am on my own (they closed the case althought the proble is still
there)
Note that that I am using teh latest version of both ic50 and ic11

I want to come back this issue of support of RH9 when I get some time.

--
Andrew Beckett
Senior Technical Leader
Custom IC Solutions
Cadence Design Systems Ltd

 

[Andrew Beckett]

Harald,

Your problems may well be the ones found in PCR 605387.

The problem results from the blinking operation that takes place
in the background once a second. For the 24bit, it's kind of
expensive because it involves several pixmap copies. So if the
graphics card is not good at copy operations, it may lock the
cpu.

It depends on the card used - many users have had no problems
with Linux, so it's not a generic problem - and it's one we're finding
out about as customers report it. Obviously we cannot test on every single
piece of hardware - this is one of the difficulties of supporting Linux compared
with Sun, HP and IBM platforms, I suppose.

In the short term a fix is planned soon to provide DFII executables
with a -noblink argument to turn off the blinking.

I certainly have been running on a Linux frontend for the last 8 months
with no big problems (some problems with analog waveforms earlier
on, with tracking cursors, but that's resolved; a fix for
crosshair markers should be arriving soon - I've tested it and it
works well).

Regards,

Andrew.

On 20 Aug 2003 02:10:48 -0700, haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote:

haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote in message news:<b9df4714.0308170232.3a6501a4@posting.google.com>...

I'm now quite sure, that there are severe problems with 24 bit and
linux as a desktop. We are running cadence remotely from a Sun on a
linux which works, and i'm trying to run that from a linux desktop,
which doesn't.
Contacting customer support didn't solve it, so i do NOT recommend
running cadence on a linux frontend at the moment... :-(
I think cadence should tell that, because figuring out that it's not
on our side took too much time. (I tried RH 7.2, RH 8.0, Xfree 4.2
Xfree 4.3 an a total of 4 different machines with different graphics
cards)

Regards, Harald

--
Andrew Beckett
Senior Technical Leader
Custom IC Solutions
Cadence Design Systems Ltd

 

[Harald Neubauer]

Andrew Beckett <andrewb@DELETETHISBITcadence.com> wrote in message news:<nmp7kvohtn9cvaknk4su6kqul3g30mhc3a@4ax.com>...

Harald,

Your problems may well be the ones found in PCR 605387.

Sorry, but i can't find that pcr . I usually find these by just
entering the number in the sourcelink search but i do not get any hit
with this number.
I do not see something like view any pcr. I just get view my pcr,
which obviously doesn't work.
How do i find this pcr?

It depends on the card used - many users have had no problems
with Linux, so it's not a generic problem - and it's one we're finding
out about as customers report it. Obviously we cannot test on every single
piece of hardware - this is one of the difficulties of supporting Linux compared
with Sun, HP and IBM platforms, I suppose.

It is surely true that there is much more hardware for pc than for Sun
etc. But i think a Matrox G550 is something like a standard for cad
workstations?
I'm having less troule on my ATI-Graphic laptop, but that doesn't
support triple monitors... ;-)

In the short term a fix is planned soon to provide DFII executables
with a -noblink argument to turn off the blinking.

This may help, but i remember having troubles with blinking on my Sun
as i changed graphic cards and updated some patches. Then my Sun-cpu
went to high cpu just for blinking, so i'm used not having blinking,
although this is bad to track errors in layout...

I certainly have been running on a Linux frontend for the last 8 months
with no big problems (some problems with analog waveforms earlier
on, with tracking cursors, but that's resolved; a fix for
crosshair markers should be arriving soon - I've tested it and it
works well).

Maybee a recommendation about the graphic-card? We are going to buy
more linux workstations and we just ordered now some with different
graphic cards, but it may take some time to find one which works just
by chance...

Regards, Harald

 

[Andrew Beckett]

Harald,

On 21 Aug 2003 01:43:05 -0700, haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote:

Andrew Beckett <andrewb@DELETETHISBITcadence.com> wrote in message news:<nmp7kvohtn9cvaknk4su6kqul3g30mhc3a@4ax.com>...
Harald,

Your problems may well be the ones found in PCR 605387.

Sorry, but i can't find that pcr . I usually find these by just
entering the number in the sourcelink search but i do not get any hit
with this number.
I do not see something like view any pcr. I just get view my pcr,
which obviously doesn't work.
How do i find this pcr?

In general you can only see your own PCRs, because other PCRs may contain
proprietary (Cadence or customer's) information, even in the title...

It depends on the card used - many users have had no problems
with Linux, so it's not a generic problem - and it's one we're finding
out about as customers report it. Obviously we cannot test on every single
piece of hardware - this is one of the difficulties of supporting Linux compared
with Sun, HP and IBM platforms, I suppose.

It is surely true that there is much more hardware for pc than for Sun
etc. But i think a Matrox G550 is something like a standard for cad
workstations?
I'm having less troule on my ATI-Graphic laptop, but that doesn't
support triple monitors... ;-)

I had a look through the PCR - Matrox G550 was one of those listed
as specifically having a problem. We've asked R&D to comment on this, because
it _ought_ to be a high performance card. Perhaps it's a driver issue, I'm
not sure...

In the short term a fix is planned soon to provide DFII executables
with a -noblink argument to turn off the blinking.

This may help, but i remember having troubles with blinking on my Sun
as i changed graphic cards and updated some patches. Then my Sun-cpu
went to high cpu just for blinking, so i'm used not having blinking,
although this is bad to track errors in layout...

Yes, we'll see.

I certainly have been running on a Linux frontend for the last 8 months
with no big problems (some problems with analog waveforms earlier
on, with tracking cursors, but that's resolved; a fix for
crosshair markers should be arriving soon - I've tested it and it
works well).

Maybee a recommendation about the graphic-card? We are going to buy
more linux workstations and we just ordered now some with different
graphic cards, but it may take some time to find one which works just
by chance...

Regards, Harald

Personally I can't make a recommendation - I haven't enough experience of
different graphics cards to be able to give any advice. But yes, it's a good
idea. In general we refrain from making hardware recommendations, because it
is very difficult to keep the information up to date, given that hardware,
drivers, and so on keep changing.

Andrew.


--
Andrew Beckett
Senior Technical Leader
Custom IC Solutions
Cadence Design Systems Ltd

 

[Andrew Beckett]

Harald,

Just a quick update. The -noblink option is due to be available in 5.0.32.500.5,
which should be available for download on 2nd September. Perhaps once that
is available you can try it and see if it helps?

Regards,

Andrew.

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 13:37:42 +0100, Andrew Beckett
<andrewb@DELETETHISBITcadence.com> wrote:

Harald,

On 21 Aug 2003 01:43:05 -0700, haneu@illegal.de (Harald Neubauer) wrote:

Andrew Beckett <andrewb@DELETETHISBITcadence.com> wrote in message news:<nmp7kvohtn9cvaknk4su6kqul3g30mhc3a@4ax.com>...
Harald,

Your problems may well be the ones found in PCR 605387.

Sorry, but i can't find that pcr . I usually find these by just
entering the number in the sourcelink search but i do not get any hit
with this number.
I do not see something like view any pcr. I just get view my pcr,
which obviously doesn't work.
How do i find this pcr?


In general you can only see your own PCRs, because other PCRs may contain
proprietary (Cadence or customer's) information, even in the title...


It depends on the card used - many users have had no problems
with Linux, so it's not a generic problem - and it's one we're finding
out about as customers report it. Obviously we cannot test on every single
piece of hardware - this is one of the difficulties of supporting Linux compared
with Sun, HP and IBM platforms, I suppose.

It is surely true that there is much more hardware for pc than for Sun
etc. But i think a Matrox G550 is something like a standard for cad
workstations?
I'm having less troule on my ATI-Graphic laptop, but that doesn't
support triple monitors... ;-)


I had a look through the PCR - Matrox G550 was one of those listed
as specifically having a problem. We've asked R&D to comment on this, because
it _ought_ to be a high performance card. Perhaps it's a driver issue, I'm
not sure...


In the short term a fix is planned soon to provide DFII executables
with a -noblink argument to turn off the blinking.

This may help, but i remember having troubles with blinking on my Sun
as i changed graphic cards and updated some patches. Then my Sun-cpu
went to high cpu just for blinking, so i'm used not having blinking,
although this is bad to track errors in layout...


Yes, we'll see.


I certainly have been running on a Linux frontend for the last 8 months
with no big problems (some problems with analog waveforms earlier
on, with tracking cursors, but that's resolved; a fix for
crosshair markers should be arriving soon - I've tested it and it
works well).

Maybee a recommendation about the graphic-card? We are going to buy
more linux workstations and we just ordered now some with different
graphic cards, but it may take some time to find one which works just
by chance...

Regards, Harald

Personally I can't make a recommendation - I haven't enough experience of
different graphics cards to be able to give any advice. But yes, it's a good
idea. In general we refrain from making hardware recommendations, because it
is very difficult to keep the information up to date, given that hardware,
drivers, and so on keep changing.

Andrew.

--
Andrew Beckett
Senior Technical Leader
Custom IC Solutions
Cadence Design Systems Ltd

 

[Sam Tran]

Harald,

I was also having the same problems. I upgraded the Cadence install per
Andrew and others and I still had problems. I then updated the video card
drivers and that solved the problem. Try updating the video card drivers if
you have not yet.

Sam