Can I use Quartus Prime Standard 24.1 and Quartus Prime Pro 25.1 at the same time?

[Hidetaka]

Hello,

I am currently using two types of FPGAs in one system: Cyclone VGX and Cyclone 10GX.

Both FPGAs use Nios V.

I have Quartus Prime Standard 24.1 and Quartus Prime Pro 25.1 installed on one PC. In this case, is it okay to list both versions in the system environment variables?
Is it okay to set the system environment variables as follows?
QSYS_ROOTDIR = C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\quartus\sopc_builder\bin;C:\altera_pro\25.1\qsys\bin
QUARTUS_ROOTDIR = C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\quartus\bin64;C:\altera_pro\25.1\quartus\bin64
path = C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\questa_fe\win64;C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\niosv\bin;C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\niosv\cmake-3.21.4-windows-x86_64\bin;%PATH%;
path =  C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\niosv\xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.3.0-2.3\bin;C:\intelFPGA_standard\24.1std\niosv\xpack-windows-build-tools-4.2.1-2\bin:%PATH%;
path = C:\altera_pro\25.1\questa_fe\win64;C:\altera_pro\25.1\niosv\bin;C:\altera_pro\25.1\niosv\cmake-3.21.4-windows-x86_64\bin;%PATH%;
path = C:\altera_pro\25.1\niosv\xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.3.0-2.3\bin;C:\altera_pro\25.1\niosv\xpack-windows-build-tools-4.2.1-2\bin;%PATH%

Regards, Hidetaka.

[sstrell]

There shouldn't be any issue.  I often have both standard and pro installed at the same time as well.  There could be an issue if you double-click a .qpf file and the wrong Quartus opens, but I usually open Quartus first and then open a project.

[FvM]

Hi,
Quartus GUI doesn't need specific environment variables, it accesses tools and libraries relative to root path of running quartus.exe. Therefore you can use many parallel Quartus versions without switching environment. Situation is different for command line based flow, e.g. when using makefiles.

A QUARTUS_ROOTDIR referencing multiple Quartus versions as shown above is most likely invalid, similar concurrent PATH entries make only sense if the contained .exe files have unique version specific names, which is generally not the case for Quartus.

For projects in production state, we usually fix the Quartus version to avoid incompatibilities. We define unique environment variables specifying the rootdir of specific Quartus versions so that makefiles referencing it can be used across Windows and Linux platforms.

If you have command line based flows that shall use different Quartus versions alternately, it's probably best to set all related environment variables explicitely in version specific scripts.

Regards
Frank

P.S.: Another point to consider is used jtagserver. If you run jtagserver as a service, all Quartus versions use it. Without manual action, latest installed Quartus version determines used jtagserver. Up to now, jtagserver version are downward compatible, latest Quartus Pro jtagserver is still supporting mature FPGA and CPLD. But only Quartus Pro jtagserver supports latest FPGA. You can switch used jtagserver by --uninstall/--install sequence with administrator rights.

[Hidetaka]

sstrell-san, Frank-san, thank you for your quick response.
I use the GUI-based Quartus and Platform Designer. Therefore, I can use both Quartus Prime Standard 24.1 and Quartus Prime Pro 25.1 on the same PC. My concern is that Nios V is embedded in both the Cyclone VGX and Cyclone 10GX FPGAs used in this system. Will I be able to run both Nios V IDEs at the same time and debug (build) without any problems?
Regards,
Hidetaka.

[khtan · Accepted solution]

Thanks sstrell and Frank for the reply.

Hi Hidetaka-san, 

I'm also running both standard and pro Quartus version on my machine. Like mentioned by sstrell and Frank, you can use both at the same time, just if you're planning on command line generation then you need to specify the environment variables to point to the correct Quartus that you want to use (eg QUARTUS_ROOTDIR) and should not reference multiple versions .

Since you're running the Quartus GUI, all the tools and libraries are self contained in its respective Quartus installed directory, so that said, you can run NIOS IDE at the same time provided it has it own separate workspaces/directory.

For debugging,  if you have separate USB Blaster or JTAG for each Cyclone V and Cyclone 10 , i think this is possible as well to debug concurrently.

Thanks

Regards

Kian 

[Hidetaka]

Thank you, Kian.
Apologies for the late response.
Currently, I have a separate USB-Blaster II connected to each of the Cyclone VGX and Cyclone 10GX, and I'm using Signaltap II simultaneously on both FPGAs. I'm also running the Nios V IDE in separate workspaces/directories.
I'm currently debugging the data transfer between these two FPGAs.

Thank you.
Regards,
Hidetaka.