Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives
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IPP Upgrade

djspeed17
Beginner
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I am encountering an issue with one of our applications and am being told by my software vendor that there is a problem with an illegal function call in the IPP Revision 5.3.3 and the E5300/T4300 processors we have in some of our machines. They are stating we will need to upgrade machines to a new processor, however they cannot tell me which CPUs would be supported.

However, I am told by Intel that our CPU will support IPP up to 6.1, and am wonderinghow I can go about upgrading the IPP of our CPUs and/or obtaining a CPU/IPP version list to reference in upgrading our machines. Unfortunately the motherboards in our machines will not support the new i3/i5/i7 processors they are referring to.

Also, is this problem a result of their coding method, or truly a problem related to the IPP version?

Following is an excerpt from my existing support conversation that Intel requested I relay to this forum for help:

Can you please comment on this support message I received from my software vendor. They seem to be telling me that specific processors run a specific IPP version and that I will need to replace the processor with a different one that is running a more current version. However, based on the e-mail I received from your support, it seems that this would not be the case. Please provide with me further information about how to 1) determine the version of IPP that is running on the various chips we have deployed 2) upgrade the IPP version if possible 3) provide me with an upgrade model that would work with the same board as the current chip or 4) provide me with additional questions/information to obtain from, or advise my software manufacture on, to further investigate this problem.

Thank you for your help!

Their response is below:

Per our conversation, here is the information I was able to find based on previous cases for the Mobotix/IPP issue.

-In addition to the E5200 processors, this issue has also been seen on computers running the E5300, 5500 and E6xxx. Unfortunately, we don't have a comprehensive listing other than that.

In order to know if a particular processor is affected, we would need to know which version of IPP a particular processor uses. As you mention, you have seen this issue exhibited with the T4300, but I dont believe this processor was used in any of our previous cases, but if it uses that version of IPP, it would have the issue.

Typically, when this issue has been encountered before, we make it a point to mention that Intel chips released during the same time period as the E5200/E5300 likely also have Intel IPP 5.3.3, but there could be others.

We do know that newer (Core i3/i5/i7) processors are not affected as they would not be using the older IPP version.

Excerpt from my original communication with our software vendor:

Who is affected?

Affected users include computers running Intel CPUs with Intel Performance Primitives (IPP) 5.3.3 when used in combination with ANY version of XProtect software and ANY Mobotix camera currently supported by XProtect software.

All versions of Milestone software are affected. (Corporate/Enterprise/Professional/Essential/Basis+).

What is Intel Performance Primitives?

Intel Performance Primitives are a set of low level software libraries that relate to video encoding/decoding, image processing/rendering, color processing, etc. IPP is hardcoded into Intel chips. There are different versions of IPP. Newer chips from Intel have newer versions of IPP which do not have this bug.

Can I upgrade my version of IPP?

No, IPP is hardcoded into your Intel chip and cannot be upgraded.

Which Intel CPUs have IPP 5.3.3?

Milestone does not maintain an exhaustive list of Intel chips with IPP 5.3.3. We have had this issue reported with the Intel E5200 and E5300 so we know both of those chips are affected. It is probably safe to assume that desktop Intel chips released during the same time period as the E5200/E5300 likely also have Intel IPP 5.3.3.

If you would like to obtain a full list of Intel chips running IPP 5.3.3, you will need to obtain that information from Intel.

What Intel CPUs do not have IPP 5.3.3?

Intel has upgraded IPP several times since IPP 5.3.3 and has included newer versions of IPP on their newer chips. We can say for certain that the new generation of Intel chips (Core i3/i5/i7) are not affected by this issue.

There are still many last generation Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Xeon chips with newer versions of IPP that are not affected by this issue.

Are AMD CPUs affected?

No, AMD CPUs are not affected by this issue.

Can you provide detailed technical information?

Our analysis of crash dump files indicates that the crash error is an invalid CPU instruction. This occurs inside an IPP function ('ippsFindC_8u') in the 'awaitMarker' function of the 'mx::MxPEGParser' class in the MxPEG codec.

--- Thank you all greatly for your help!!

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4 Replies
Tamer_Assad
Innovator
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Hi djspeed17,

IPP is NOT hardcoded into any Intel chips, it is not embedded software.
IPP is a software library, and like any other good software, it is always upgraded to conquer with newer technologies; IPP can run Windows and Linux platforms, as well as Intel and AMD processors, with the following considerations:

1) Processor version supports the utilized IPP version
2) Operating system version supports the utilized IPP version

The invalid CPU instruction indicates that the software utilizing Intel IPP does not match with your installed processor, this error can be altered by either:
1) upgrading your processor, in this case consult your software vendor about which processor supports their product that utilizes IPP (minimum requirement for the product)
2) Request your software vendor to provide you an update for their product, so that utilizes an older IPP version that is supported by your current installed processor.

Best regards,
Tamer Assad

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djspeed17
Beginner
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Thanks for your reply. So is it my understanding then that the IPP library is being supplied from my software vendor or was it part of the shipped OS?

According to the response I received from Intel, it stated that our processors support up to IPP 6.1 release. How can I go about obtaining and upgrading the IPP version of my system?
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Tamer_Assad
Innovator
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Hi djspeed17,

IPP is for software developers...
Authorized Software vendors do ship required IPP files for their product along with the product itself (software program), end user should not worry about that, I mean at all.

You may think about it this way: when you buy a power switch, you need to know the right voltage; as an end user, you dont need to know or worry about what are the internal parts of that power switch...

Also, if you managed to locate the right IPP version for your processor, it is not guaranteed at all to solve your problem, because there are number of ways for software vendors include IPP within their products.

I wish I'm wrong about this issue... I hope this helps anyway; please come back to this post soon, it is very likely that one of Intel IPP team themselves will reply to your question as well.

Regards,
Tamer Assad

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Chao_Y_Intel
Moderator
609 Views


Thanks Tamer, for the good comments.

It is correct that IPP library is redistributedfrom the software vender. IPP is not hardcoded into the processors. Basically, the end user of the software is not required to update Intel IPP.

I think possibly the problem you mentioned is this one:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-integrated-performance-primitives-intel-ipp-intel-ipp-53-dispatches-wrong-cpu-type-for-intel-core2-duo-mobile-processors/

The new version of IPP (version 5.3 update 4 or latter) has fixed the problem.

You could check the software vender if they have fixed version for this problem. If so, you just need to use the fixed version.

Thanks,
Chao

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