Honored ContributorHello, quick question for everyone. I'm just wondering how many people are using the built-in simulator in Quartus or using ModelSim? I've been using the built-in simulator but a few of my co-worker when to an Altera Training class and the Altera instructor said to drop the built-in simulator and use ModelSim. I'm trying to learn ModelSim and was wondering if anyone had any comments on the topic?
Thanks
Honored ContributorThis thread has some opinions about that.
http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1066 My opinion is: For very small designs Quartus simulator is ok but for serious and large designs where you want to do long simulations ModelSim is more suitable. I use only ModelSim.Honored ContributorAs said in the referenced thread, Quartus simulator doesn't allow you to write your own test bench. You can only draw input waveforms which is very limited. Now that with Quartus you have a free access to ModelSim, it is really worth using it. You'll never regret the time you'll spend understanding how it's working. You just have to learn how to write a test bench and the rest is really straightforward.
Using modelSim, you can even put breakpoints, step by step in your code, see the results of assertions, interact with external code using Tcl/Tk. This is a really powerful way of debugging it (and even of learning VHDL or Verilog). The only case when Quartus simulator is useful is if you don't have 2 days to learn how ModelSim is working and what you want to simulate is just a counter plus a few flip-flops.
