Release Notes for RTX64 4.4

• Key Features
• Issues Resolved
• Notes
• Known Issues
• API Changes Between RTX64 3.x and RTX64 4.x

 

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Key Features

RTX64 Runtime

General

• Added support for 13th Gen Intel® Core™ processors.
• RTX64 now supports the following .NET implementations under .NET Standard 2.0: (11101)

.NET Implementation	Version Support
.NET and .NET Core	2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0
.NET Framework	4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1

NOTE: While NuGet considers .NET Framework 4.6.1 as supporting .NET Standard 1.5 through 2.0, there are several issues with consuming .NET Standard libraries built for those versions from .NET Framework 4.6.1 projects.

NOTE: RTX64 does not support other implementations of .NET Standard 2.0 that involve multi-platform support.

Real-Time Subsystem

• The RTX64 Subsystem now detects whether hypervisor features are enabled on the machine. When detected, the Subsystem will not start. If you want to run the Subsystem on a virtual machine for development purposes, you must select Enable virtual machine support during RTX64 Runtime installation. (11079)

Network and Drivers

• Incorporated the RTX64 Realtek driver (RtNalRtl), which provides support for the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller. See the RTX64 Supported NICs document, available from the Customer Center, for a list of supported devices.
• Added functionality to the RtNalIGC driver:
• Added support for Interrupt Moderation. (10777)
• NAL applications can use RtNalSetInterruptModeration to configure Interrupt Moderation.
• Real-time Network applications can use RTNAL_IOCTL_SET_INTERRUPT_MODERATION by calling RtnIOCTLDriver to configure Interrupt Moderation.
• Added support for multiple queues. (10775)
• Added support for hardware time stamping. (10776)
• Added support for selecting speed and duplex. (10867)
• The RTX64 Virtual Network Interface is now an optional feature during installation. It is selected to be installed by default. (10359)

Tools and Utilities

• Added functionality to the Configure and control the network page in the RTX64 Control Panel:
• These IPv6 addresses are not supported and will be rejected: (9693)
• A duplicate address on more than one enabled interface
• A multicast address
• The loopback address
• A link-local address
• Address ::0
• These IPv6 addresses are supported: (9693)
• A unicast or anycast address
• A unique local address
• Added a Set the Stack timer execute priority field to set the priority of the RT-TCP/IP Stack's second real-time timer thread, which executes functions for expired timers. (9915)

• Added a Speed & Duplex setting to the Manage Interfaces page in the RTX64 Control Panel, which specifies the method used to establish the link. (10189)

• Added functionality to RtssPing that allows you to specify the source IP address for the ping request. (9365)
• Added support for MSI-X Single Vector and MSI-X Multi Vector to the RTX64 Control Panel. (11356)
• Expanded RTX64 Analyzer output to include a /PowerConfig section that includes information on the following: (6678)
• WindowsEnergyPerformanceBias
• DisableSpeedStep

 

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Issues Resolved

RTX64 Runtime

Tools and Utilities

• Resolved an issue where RTX64 Console could not be cleared when a large amount of data was printed. (10829)
• Resolved these issues with the RTX64 Control Panel:
• Resolved an issue where the RTX64 Task Manager had elevated privileges when launched from the RTX64 Control Panel. (10090)
• Resolved an issue where the Manage interfaces and filters page was inaccessible on Turkish-language versions of Windows. (9261)
• Resolved an issue where NAL and TCP/IP Stack status did not update properly when auto-start was disabled. (10462)
• Resolved these issues with the RTX64 Activation and Configuration utility:
• Resolved an issue where links redirected to the wrong page in the RTX64 Control Panel. (10459)
• Resolved an issue where the RTX64 Activation and Configuration utility succeeded unexpectedly in situations where it shouldn’t have. (9566)
• Resolved an issue where RtssPing displayed output in multiple console windows. (9888)
• Resolved an issue where the RT-TCP/IP Stack did not work correctly with a specified server link-local IPv6 address. (9366)
• Resolved an issue where attempting to stop the Subsystem while KSRTM was running resulted in a system crash. (6922)
• Resolved an issue where RtssKill truncated large PIDs that resulted from running large numbers of processes. (10916)

Network and Drivers

• Resolved an issue where the Device ID and Vendor ID listed in the DriverList.xml file for the Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I225 (blankNVM) (RTX64) device was incorrect. (11063)

• Resolved an issue where the RTX64 Control Panel would associate the wrong default NIC driver with Intel Device ID 0x10BC. (11607)

 

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Notes

RTX64 Runtime

General

• The sample Advanced Installer merge modules project, included with the RTX64 Merge Modules, does not include logic to allow RTX64 Runtime to support virtual machines. If you want your installation to support virtual machines — which is not a supported deployment scenario — you must include the registry value ExitWhenHypervisorPresent (type REG_DWORD) under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IntervalZero\RTX64\. To support virtual machines, set this value to 1. (11733)

NOTE: RTX64 does not support Hypervisor-enabled systems. Enabling this feature may cause your system to generate a Windows STOP error when the RTX64 Subsystem is started. A virtual machine should not be used to deploy hard real-time applications.

• RTX64 Runtime is not compatible with the Windows Memory integrity security feature. You must turn it off before you install RTX64 Runtime. You can do this in the Windows Security app under Device security / Core isolation / Core isolation details.
• Upgrading to a new Windows 11 feature update on a machine where the RTX64 Runtime is already installed results in deletion of the RTSS boot configuration. To work around this issue, set the RTSS boot configuration through the RTX64 Activation and Configuration utility. See the topic Setting the RTSS Boot Configuration for more information.
• When Intel® TurboBoost is enabled in the BIOS, Windows core frequency is boosted when the RTX64 Subsystem starts. This is because RTSS cores are in an idle loop for pooling those SRIs from Windows to RTSS cores. On Coffee Lake systems, specifically, whenever there is a core in the idle loop, the remaining cores' frequency is boosted. To avoid this, we recommend you disable Intel® TurboBoost in the BIOS.
• When you upgrade RTX64 Runtime, the installer exports a settings file containing your current Runtime settings to %Programdata%/IntervalZero/ExportedSettings. If the upgrade is unsuccessful, you can use the standalone RTX64Settings tool, available from the Customer Center, to revert settings to their pre-upgrade configuration. (7413)

Compatibility

• RTX64 now supports several .NET implementations under .NET Standard 2.0 (see Runtime Key Features above). These should work without requiring code changes.
• RTX64 Vision 4.1 is compatible with RTX64 4.5.
• Unlike with previous versions, RTX64 4.5 is not always compatible with RTSS processes built with a prior version of RTX64 (though all 4.x versions are compatible). See API Changes Between RTX64 3.x and RTX64 4.x for a list of deprecated and modified API calls. You can use the new RtssRun flag /c to check if an existing RTSS binary will run on RTX64 4.x.

Licensing

• Licenses for RTX64 3.x and previous versions will not work with RTX64 4.5.
• RTX64 4.0 and above only support small form factor dongles. The standard dongles supported by previous versions are no longer supported. If RTX64 4.x is installed on a system, standard dongles will no longer work for previous versions installed on the same system.

Network and Drivers

• When creating a custom NIC driver, we recommend that the driver’s binary name not match the default NIC driver names provided by RTX64. The default driver names are used by the Control Panel to set up interfaces with the optimal defaults based on the provided driver’s logic. (8318)
• Custom NIC drivers should not use the C Runtime library, and must not call printf. (6438)
• A Windows 10 feature update may cause devices previously converted to RTX64 control to convert back to Windows control. Following a Windows feature update, verify that all converted devices remain under RTX64 control, and re-convert any that were reset to Windows control using the steps documented in the topic Converting a Windows Device to an RTX64 Device.
• The maximum value for the TCP/IP Stack's maximum concurrency setting is now 10340. (9151)
• The advanced NAL interface properties Number of receive buffers and Number of transmit buffers must be a multiple of 8. (8159)
• The IPv4 Address of the Windows adapter is now configured to 192.168.100.10 with 255.255.255.0 Subnet mask by default. (2695)
• For improved performance, we recommend you use MSI-X Single Vector instead of MSI for interrupts when possible.

Tools and Utilities

• RtssPing will now always respond with a precision of 1ms or lower. (8915)
• Links in the RTX64 Control Panel to external tools and components are disabled when those tools and components are not installed. (10347)

 

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Known Issues

RTX64 Runtime

Installation

• If you remove the Virtual Network feature from the RTX64 Runtime installation (it is selected by default), install RTX64 Runtime, and then modify the installation to install the Virtual Network, the Virtual Network will not install properly. To work around this issue, uninstall and reinstall RTX64 Runtime with the Virtual Network feature selected. (11677)
• To run RTX64 Runtime on a virtual machine, you must select Enable virtual machine support during installation. RTX64 does not support all virtualization functionality. Enabling this feature may cause your system to generate a Windows STOP error when the RTX64 Subsystem is started. A virtual machine should not be used to deploy hard real-time applications.
• Running the command to create a custom response file (RTX64_<version number>_Runtime_Setup.exe /r /f1 <file location>) using either the RTX64 Runtime or SDK Installer results in a blank error dialog if the specified <file location> is not valid. (10662)
• RTX64 user groups are not removed when the RTX64 Runtime is uninstalled. (9911)
• When multiple RTX64 SDK versions are installed on the same machine, only one shortcut to the Activation and Configuration utility will appear in the Start menu. This shortcut might not always be listed under the most recent SDK version. (8359)

Licensing

• The Activation and Configuration and command line utilities fail silently (do not display an error) when an attempt is made to activate an RTX64 Runtime component on a Virtual Machine when a dongle is not present. (9225)
• If you install the RTX64 3.7 Runtime on a machine on which the RTX64 4.x SDK is already installed and then activate both products, the Activation and Configuration utility does not allow you to set the RTSS boot configuration. (8647)
• Licenses cannot be activated to a small form factor dongle, either from the Activation and Configuration utility or command line, on a remote system accessed via Windows Remote Desktop. This is due to a security limitation with the third-party dongle software. Attempts to activate to the dongle in this scenario will result in an error such as Error 19 (Unable to read dongle memory). Note that this issue does not happen when other remote connections, such as VNC or Team Viewer, are used.

Real-Time Subsystem

• The RTX64 Subsystem cannot be stopped after a process that used _beginthread or _beginthreadex to spawn child threads is forcefully terminated while those child threads are still running. To work around this issue, you must restart the system. To avoid this issue, use CreateThread to spawn child threads, or avoid forcefully terminating a process (using RtssKill or some other means) that used _beginthread or _beginthreadex to spawn child threads that have not exited. (10894, 10700)
• Windows shutdown handling does not function properly on some Intel® 12^th Gen systems running Windows 11. When this occurs, RTX64 cannot perform its own shutdown handling. (10673)

Network and Drivers

• Jumbo packets cause the RTX64 Realtek driver (RtNalRtl) to become unstable. (11742)
• The Force Speed/Duplex feature for the RtNalIGC Driver does not work when the i225 device is plugged into a device that supports 2.5 Gbps. (10867)
• Real-time API RtnGetArpTable() and the RtssArp.rtss utility display device names truncated to 15 characters. The full case-sensitive device name must be used when adding or deleting an ARP entry. (9222)

Tools and Utilities

• Tracealyzer displays the wrong core number for custom events generated from a Windows application. However, the process ID (PID) and thread ID (TID) in the custom event do correctly identify the proxy process and thread that generated the event. (10788, 10873)
• An application warning appears when you use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N to open a new window in Tracealyzer: Unable to create new window: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. To work around this issue, open a new instance of Tracealyzer. (10753)
• The Heap Allocation Fail event does not appear in monitoring log files or Tracealyzer. (10822)
• When the amount of generated monitoring data exceeds the amount of memory dedicated to monitoring, automatic stop conditions such as Maximum number of events to collect or Maximum session log size may cause the active monitoring session to enter a false-stopped state. To resolve this, start a new monitoring session using RTX64 Monitor and make sure the tool shows the new session as running. (10797)
• If the system is shut down while the Subsystem is running and monitoring is enabled but not started, a hidden, locked monitoring session file might remain when the system is rebooted. Note that this file consumes memory associated with the configured maximum session log sizes. (10787)
• Tools in RTX64 4.0 and later exhibit various issues on systems running Windows 10 2016 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch). Due to these issues, we have performed limited testing and will not be claiming support for such systems. If you require Windows 10 2016 LTSB support, please contact your Sales representative. (9206)
• The Set the IP reassembly timeout setting in the Configure and control the network page of the Control Panel will erroneously reset to 64 instead of 60 when reset to factory defaults. (11666)