Which Intel Chipsets correspond to the Intel Pro/1000 requirement for the High performance driver?

[AnthonV]

OK so I know that to get minimum load on the CPU during GigE acquisition I need to use an 'Intel Pro/1000 Network card chipset".  However, often the manufacturers of NICs will state the part number of the chipset as eg. Intel 82572GI.  

Can anyone help me by pointing me to a list of intel Ethernet chipsets and whether they fall in the Pro/1000 group?  Or am I missing something?

Thanks

[Silver_Shaper]

Hi Anthon

Are you looking for this http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/adapters/pro1000gt/pro1000gt-overview.htm

[AnthonV]

Thanks for the link but that is simply the Intel Pro/1000 Network interface card.  This obviously isn't the only card that works with the NI high performance driver (eg the PXIe8234 ethernet card is also Intel Pro/1000 and uses the Intel 82572EI).  It must depend on what intel chipset is used, but which ones?

[Kira_T]

Hi AnthonV,

Any of the Intel Chipsets that support jumbo frames are supported by the high performance drivers.  Let us know if you have questions about specific chipsets.  Thanks.

Regards,

Kira T

[BlueCheese]

---

@kira T wrote:

Hi AnthonV,

Any of the Intel Chipsets that support jumbo frames are supported by the high performance drivers.  Let us know if you have questions about specific chipsets.  Thanks.

Regards,

Kira T

---

Sorry - that's not quite true. The list of supported devices is based on what the driver has support programmed for. The high-performance driver only supports a subset of the Intel ones.

The biggest problem with maintaining any sort of list is that it is extremely hard to guarantee the accuracy of such a list. The matching of specific devices supported by the driver is done via specific PCI device IDs. There might be multiple retail Intel boards with the same product name that use entirely different chipsets under the hood. Furthermore, even chipsets with the same name might have multiple revisions that use different device ids.

In general, the only hardware that we can really guarantee will work right are the boards sold directly from NI. We can control the exact chipsets used on the board and validate them with our software. You can of course look at the INF file for the driver (C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\NI-IMAQdx\Staging\NI GigE Vision\nigevk.inf) and take a look at the supported device IDs installed with whatever version of the driver you are using. A quick google of those ids can give you an idea of what the reverse lookup is to a comparable retail board from Intel.

Eric

[AnthonV]

Thanks Blue, I have a hard enough time finding a processor that is supported by RT (most dells use Broadcom), now it seems I need to narrow my search criteria.  I would for obvious reasons need to be able to determine compatibility BEFORE I buy, so I will take a look at your suggested method today.  For instance, if I am goign to be streaming video from 5 GigE cameras, it isn't cost effective for me to buy 3x 2 port NI PXIe cards, I rather buy a third party 5 port device. The datasheet for such a device says:

5 ports, each equipped with the Intel 82574L (Hartwell), 82574IT on request (extended temperature range), low power integrated MAC+PHY

So I could use your lookup procedure for this chipset?

By the way, some of the "Intel Pro/1000" NICs do NOT support jumbo frames, so that cannot be a prerequisite.

Thanks for the continued help.

[AnthonV]

Bluecheese, please confirm that I am following your argument:  On my PC, the nigevk.inf file contains:

[intelMfg]

; DisplayName           Section       DeviceID

; -----------           -------       --------

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_100E

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_100F

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_101E

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1026

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_105E

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1076

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_107C

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_107D

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10A4

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_108B

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_108C

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10B9

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_109A

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10BC

;%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10BE

;%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10F5

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1096

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10D3

Then when I check the Intel GigaBit Ethernet Controllers on my PC, I see that it has a 82577 and a 82574.  On Intel's website the datasheets for these controllers mention that these have Device IDs of 0x10EA and 0x10D3 respectively.  0x10D3 is on the list above, but 0x10EA is not.  This is not the whole story because when I check which Ethernet controllers are supported by RT (see whitepaper), it lists several different device IDs for the 82577 (this is not clearly indicated in the Intel datasheet for the 82577). 

So I can rest assured that if I install RT on my PC, it will support all the ethernet ports.  But even though I could use any port for a GigE camera, I should actually make sure I plug the camera into the port serviced by the 82574, as this is the only controller that will use the high performance driver.  

So my questions are:

1) Is my reasoning above correct?

2) Does the same apply for Windows (choosing a port to plug the GigE camera into)?

3) Do I have to do anything to make Windows/RT use the high performance driver, or will this happen automatically?

Thanks for the help.

[BlueCheese · Accepted solution]

---

@AnthonV wrote:

Bluecheese, please confirm that I am following your argument:  On my PC, the nigevk.inf file contains:

[intelMfg]

; DisplayName           Section       DeviceID

; -----------           -------       --------

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_100E

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_100F

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_101E

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1026

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_105E

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1076

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_107C

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_107D

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10A4

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_108B

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_108C

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10B9

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_109A

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10BC

;%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10BE

;%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10F5

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1096

%Intel.deviceDesc% = Intel.ndi,     PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10D3

Then when I check the Intel GigaBit Ethernet Controllers on my PC, I see that it has a 82577 and a 82574.  On Intel's website the datasheets for these controllers mention that these have Device IDs of 0x10EA and 0x10D3 respectively.  0x10D3 is on the list above, but 0x10EA is not.  This is not the whole story because when I check which Ethernet controllers are supported by RT (see whitepaper), it lists several different device IDs for the 82577 (this is not clearly indicated in the Intel datasheet for the 82577). 

So I can rest assured that if I install RT on my PC, it will support all the ethernet ports.  But even though I could use any port for a GigE camera, I should actually make sure I plug the camera into the port serviced by the 82574, as this is the only controller that will use the high performance driver.  

So my questions are:

1) Is my reasoning above correct?

2) Does the same apply for Windows (choosing a port to plug the GigE camera into)?

3) Do I have to do anything to make Windows/RT use the high performance driver, or will this happen automatically?

Thanks for the help.

---

Your reasoning seems correct. The 82577 is not currently supported by the High Performance Driver while it is supported by LVRT. The list of controllers supported by LVRT and the list supported by the High Performance GigE Vision driver are not identical.

Additionally, the list of supported devices in the High Performance Driver when running under LVRT and on Windows is *generally* identical, but occasionally there are different versions of this driver shipped between the two platforms and so the chipset support can sometimes differ. You can see a list of the ids supported by the High Performance driver on RT in the below file:

C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\RT Images\NI-GEV\<version>\nigev_enetblacklist.ini

On Windows you have two options in that you can use either the High Performance Driver (if supported on that NIC) or the standard driver and both will work for GigE Vision, with different levels of performance. On LVRT you can only do GigE Vision via a NIC supported by the High Performance Driver.

The only requirement (besides compatible hardware) for using the High Performance Driver on Windows is to ensure you have the driver associated with the hardware. Usually there will be a system-provided driver that is listed as compatible as well. If you run our installer it will switch all compatoble hardware to ours, but depending on the order things happen this might not always be the case. You can go to device manager and select switch driver and it should show the two drivers as compatible options.

Eric

[AnthonV]

Thanks Eric, this clarifies things a lot.