Is it very necessary to buy a USB cable?

[Altera_Forum]

Local FAE told me that it's not very necessary to update the ByteBlaster II to USB Blaster, which cable do you use?

[Altera_Forum]

Hello, 

 Currently I’m working with a standard ByteBlaster MV without any problems. In this situation I don’t really use the debugging features. My FAE told me that it is necessary to use the USB version for debugging procedures.   Bye, niosIIuser

[Altera_Forum]

Basically, if you don't see the problems described below, you don't need to change anything. 

 directly from the errata: Known Issues with the Nios II Hardware Development Flow  Download Cables:  You must use a supported download cable when downloading,   debugging, or communicating with Nios II systems over JTAG.   Using the USB Blaster Rev A, ByteBlaster, ByteBlaster MV,   ByteBlaster II, and MasterBlaster cables may cause intermittent   JTAG communication failures.    The modes of failure are:  * Debugging Failure with the Nios II IDE - Debug session   terminates with JTAG I/O error   * Nios II JTAG UART Failure - Invalid characters transmitted   and received via Nios II Terminal   * Device Configuration Failure - Device configuration fails   with an error message from the Quartus II Programmer   * SignalTap Failure - SignalTap session terminates with JTAG   communication error   If you receive the following message while using the Nios II Terminal,   the tools could not verify whether you are using a supported cable.    nios2-terminal: Warning: Unable to verify whether your download cable is supported for Nios II systems.   nios2-terminal: If you use an unsupported cable, you may experience intermittent JTAG communication failures.   nios2-terminal: Please refer to the file errata.txt included in the Nios II development kit documents directory for   nios2-terminal: information on how to update your system.   In general, the above message will only occur if you have   re-installed Quartus II 4.0 SP1 after you installed Nios II   version 1.0. Re-installing Nios II will allow your system to   detect if your cable is supported. The warning message will   occur each time Nios II Terminal is started until you re-install   Nios II.    If you receive the following message from Nios II Terminal, you   are not using a supported download cable. The warning message will   occur each time Nios II Terminal is started and an unsupported cable   is detected.   nios2-terminal: Warning: The JTAG cable you are using is not supported for Nios II systems.   nios2-terminal: You may experience intermittent JTAG communication failures with this cable.   nios2-terminal: Please use a USB Blaster revision B cable or another supported cable.   nios2-terminal: Please refer to the file errata.txt included in the Nios II development kit documents directory for more information.   The supported cables for downloading, debugging, or communicating  with Nios II systems are:   * USB Blaster Revision B or later  Revision B cables are clearly labeled as Revision B.   (Revision A cables have no revision label.)

[Altera_Forum]

Well, 

 I've got my NIOS-II eval. board recently and it came with a USB cable Rev. B. But when running an application, the console of the IDE keeps telling me that I'm not using a Rev. B cable. Is this a driver problem? Do I need to reinstall/update the driver?  Well, every thing works fine so far, but it would be great to get rid of this message.

[Altera_Forum]

Refer to the readme.txt in the install directory. Maybe you should reinstall the software.

[Altera_Forum]

I'm still using ByteBlaster ... not by choice ... I've been waiting for 

my usbBlaster since August 8-P  It seems to work just fine .... with some failures from time-to-time.  --Scott