Installation Overview

The RTX64 software can be installed by:

Downloading a purchased version from http://www.intervalzero.com/rtx64_downloads.htm and then using instructions from the Installation Guide that came with your purchased software
Requesting a Product CD and using the instructions from the Installation Guide that came with your purchased software

There are two installations available for RTX64, an SDK for development and a Runtime for your target system.

The RTX64 Runtime:

Is necessary to run RTX64 executables. These can be Real-time applications (.RTSS) or Windows user applications (.EXE) or drivers (.SYS) that communicate with real-time applications.

The RTX64 SDK includes:

Libraries and header files used to build Real-time applications (.RTSS) or Windows user applications (.EXE) or drivers (.SYS) that can communicate with real-time applications.
Add-ins to support development and debugging with Visual Studio 2012, 2013, 2015, or 2017.

Requirements

To use RTX64 SDK, you must have a 64-bit Operating system that supports these Visual Studio versions.

NOTE: See the Installation Guide for your software kit for more details on each of these host system requirements.

To use RTX64 Runtime on your target system, you must have a system with one of the following operating systems:

64-bit version of Windows 10 (up to Semi-Annual Channel 1903)
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC (Long Term Service Channel) Version 2019
64-bit version of Windows 8.1 with Update
64-bit version of Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
64-bit version of Windows Embedded Standard 7 with Service Pack 1
64-bit version of Windows Embedded Standard 8.1

NOTE: See the Installation Guide for your Runtime for more details on each of these target system requirements.

Software Prerequisites

The RTX64 SDK requires that you have a supported version of Microsoft Visual Studio installed, including the x64 compiler and the C Runtime libraries if you wish to build and debug RTX64 programs with the Visual Studio IDE.

NOTE: Both the SDK and Runtime require the .NET 4.5.1 Framework. This will be installed as part of the RTX64 installations.

RTX64 Runtime Features

Let’s start by getting familiar with the components that make up the RTX64 Runtime on your target machine.

Tools and Utilities

RTX64 contains tools and utilities that can be used to control RTSS processes. These utilities provide the ability to start and stop processes, check the status of running processes and view application output.

Included utilities:

RtssRun – runs an RTSS process immediately
RtssKill – terminates an RTSS process using a process ID
Server – console that displays RTSS application printf output messages
Analyzer – utility to gather system information
Control Panel – provides a number of settings that let you determine how the Subsystem, RTSS applications, and RT-TCP/IP Stack (if purchased) behave. It also allows you to view information specific to your version, access product documentation, and launch the RTX64 Analyzer utility.
Task Manager – GUI-based utility that allows you to view and control all active RTSS processes and RTDLLs on your system.
CPU Usage – displays CPU usage information for all RTSS cores on the system.
Objects – displays information about RTSS processes and their associated objects, such as events, semaphores, and loaded RTDLLs.
Monitor – Simple utility to allow users to start and stop monitoring sessions, and generate log files of monitoring results.
KSRTM – Kernel System Response Timer Measurement tool that measures HAL-level timer latencies to the Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) and provides reports and histograms of the results.
Latency View – displays a visual comparison of latency between Windows and RTX64 cores

For information on the other utilities available in RTX64, see the RTX64 Product Documentation.

Running RTSS Processes

You can run RTSS applications by double-clicking on the binary in Windows Explorer, starting a task from the RTX64 Task Manager, or by using RtssRun from a command prompt on your target system:

To use Task Manager:

Open the RTX64 Task Manager.
Click Start Task.
Click Browse and browse to the RTSS binary you want to run. For example, to run the SRTM binary provided with RTX64, browse to the RTX64 runtime installation directory bin directory and select srtm.rtss.
Click OK.

For more information on SRTM and other samples, see the RTX64 Program Samples.

To use RtssRun:

Open a Command Prompt
Type RtssRun, and then type the full path to the RTSS binary. For example, to run the SRTM binary provided with RTX64:

RtssRun “C:\Program Files\IntervalZero\RTX64\bin\srtm.rtss”

If RtssRun is successful, a tone will begin and the RTX Server console will open and display text. Upon completion, the SRTM process prints a summary and histogram of latency results.

For more information on SRTM and other samples, see the see the RTX64 Program Samples.

Stopping RTSS Processes

If you must terminate a RTSS process, you can stop an RTSS application using RTX64 Task Manager or RtssKill from a command prompt on your target system:

NOTE: You should only kill a process if there is no other way to stop the process gracefully. This is the equivalent of using Task manager to stop a running Windows process.

To use Task Manager:

Open the RTX64 Task Manager.
Select the process you wish to kill and click Stop Task.

To use RtssKill:

Open a Command Prompt
Type RtssKill and press return, this will display all running RTSS processes on the system.
If you wish to kill a process, find the process ID, and pass that value to RtssKill. For example, if the process ID was 1005 you would type:

rtsskill 1005

Configuring the Real-time Subsystem

If you want to view the current subsystem configuration, or want to modify the configuration, you would use the RTX64 Control Panel. For now, we will only look at some key features to get you started.

Sometimes it may be necessary to stop the subsystem to modify its configuration.

Starting and Stopping the Subsystem

To start/stop the Subsystem from the Control Panel

You can start and stop the RTSS Subsystem directly from the control panel Home page. The current status of the Subsystem is displayed in the Start/stop the Subsystem box. Click the Start arrow to start the Subsystem. Click the Stop button to stop it.

Changing the HAL Timer Period of the Subsystem

The RTX64 HAL Timer is the primary timer that the RTX64 Subsystem uses for all internal synchronization, timers and wait functionality. The default value for the subsystem HAL Timer Period is 100 microseconds. This value can be as low as 1 microsecond or as large as 1,000 microseconds.

This value can have an impact on the responsiveness of your subsystems and applications. Application timers can only have periods as small as the subsystem's HAL timer period or a multiple of it. For example if the HAL timer period is 50 you can create a timer with a period of 50, 100, 200, but not of 130. A value of 130 would be rounded up to 150.

NOTE: Use caution when setting the HAL timer period below 20 microseconds. If the HAL timer period is set too low it can inversely impact performance or cause your system to hang. Fully test the timer period you set with your real-time application on all systems on which you will deploy to verify that the hardware can accomplish the compilations required in the period set.

To change the HAL Timer Period from the Control Panel:

In the RTX64 Control Panel, click Configure the RTSS Subsystem > Change internal system behavior.

Select a period from the HAL timer period (microseconds) drop-down menu. The available values are:

1000, 500, 200, 100 (default), 50, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1

If you have configured a custom HAL timer period not listed in the drop down menu, you can type it in.

Restart RTX64 for your changes to take effect. If you plan to make additional changes that require a restart of the Subsystem, make all of the changes first and then restart RTX64 when you are finished.

Gathering Configuration Information

Sometimes it is useful to gather information about your current system state, the easiest way to do this is to run Analyzer. It will generate a text file containing your current RTX64 configuration.

To run Analyzer from the Control Panel:

Open the Control Panel. For more information, see Opening the Control Panel.
Click Run RTX64 Analyzer.

The resulting file might look like this: