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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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13 years ago

Quartus 12.0 missing 64bit libraries

Hi,

The free edition of Quartus II 12 doesn't ship with the 64-bit Intel Threading Building Blocks libraries necessary to run the 64-bit JTAG server. This makes it impossible to program devices over USB-Blaster on 64-bit Windows operating systems even when running the 32-bit version of Quartus. The 32-bit JTAG server for 32-bit Windows operating systems is unaffected.

Manually downloading the TBB libraries and extracting the missing dlls to the bin64 folder will fix the problem. I did not see any documentation detailing this so I decided to post my findings

9 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Hm, did You set the checkbox during installation to include 64bit libraries?

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    There is no option to install additional 64-bit libraries for the free edition. Presumably this is because 64-bit application support is limited to the subscription edition. However 64-bit drivers and services are necessary for a 64-bit Windows installation regardless of whether a 32-bit or 64-bit application is used

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Oh, possibly true. I'd offer You to open a Service Request at Altera regarding this problem.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Thanks, I'll do that later on. As I said though grabbing the libraries from the TBB website and dropping them into the folder seems to solve the problem. I recall there being a similar problem with Quartus 11.1sp2, a fix was issued for the 64-bit subscription edition (patch 2.11) which was also necessary to fix the 32-bit versions that were running on a 64-bit operating system despite claiming that 32-bit versions were unaffected.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Quick questions, after I extract the files, which DLL files do I put in the bin64 folder?

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Hi, I just installed V12.0 sp2 and encountered the same problem. Quartus II does not find Byte Blaster while the driver is said to be working properly in Device Manager. I tried the above suggestions, but the problem does not go away. Could someone help on this?

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    Hi,

    Manually downloading the TBB libraries and extracting the missing dlls to the bin64 folder will fix the problem. I did not see any documentation detailing this so I decided to post my findings

    --- Quote End ---

    Thanks for sharing this. I've been vexed by the same problem.

    I'm a newcomer to Altera. So far the experience has been mixed: Some things are well done, others appear to be left to chance.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    Thank you for sharing this solution! I had the same problem: running Windows 7, 64 bit, I installed Quartus II 12.0 sp2, and even though the USB-Blaster seems fine in the Windows device manager, the Quartus Programmer was not seeing it.

    Adding the TBB libraries (I just copied everything out of bin\intel64\vc10 in the TBB zip) to altera\12.0sp2\quartus\bin64 did the trick.

    Thanks again Pinhedd!
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    13 years ago

    I just received my first Altera board (the DE0-Nano - very nice to get a hobbyist-high-end solderless-friendly board for around the price of parts, with plenty of GPIO while still including the solderless-unfriedly RAM, unlike a few inexensive boards of other brands) and had this problem, which was very frustrating as a user new to Altera's tool set. I finally solved it late last night by installing the stand-alone programmer, which does include all the needed libraries in its own bin64 folder. I didn't have time to check whether Quartus II would work with the programmer's installation of the libraries or whether I'd have to copy the bin64 directory over the Quartus II version.

    I've heard great things about Altera products and tools from others, but having to figure this kind of problem out (while at the same time fighting their attempt to use a downloader) makes me question what I've heard. My searching on this showed it has been a problem in several recent versions of Quartus II and fixed in often as well, which shows some failure at regression testing. It would definitely improve initial impressions if this could be more permanently solved, as it is the kind of thing that could easily drive new people away.