Altera Quartus Web Edition 8.0 available

If anyone is curious, there is a newly-removed feature in 8.0: Parallel compiles have been disabled in Web Edition.

That's not quite correct. I have

set_global_assignment -name NUM_PARALLEL_PROCESSORS 2

in my .qsf file and indeed it uses them. I find this in my fitter report:

... Info: Parallel compilation is enabled and will use up to 2 processors ... Info: Parallel compilation was enabled and used an average of 1.1 processors and a maximum of 2 processors out of 2 processors allo wed

Furthermore, version 8.0 enables the use of multiple parallel local runs for DSE, thus taking advantages are all the core you could possible have.

Version 8.0 is also a bit faster. Oddly, some designs took a slight Fmax hit with 8.0, but I haven't found a consistent pattern.

Tommy

Indeed. I'd think that's a bug, one I hope won't get fixed. :)

I filed a report thinking the GUI setting was broken, and got the response that parallel compiles are now disabled.

We have seen 9% higher utilization for Q8.0 vs Q7.2 (subscription) on the same project. I think I'll wait for 8.1.

-- Mike Treseler

Looks like a nice marketing trick: Release a new software version and you can sell bigger FPGAs :-)

Curious. I don't know why the fitter would report more than one processor used if it didn't. However I can't say I care much. The benefit was way too little to be measurable. The multi-core DSE is a much more important feature IMO.

Tommy