Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition Quick-Start: Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition

ID 703090
Date 6/26/2023
Public

2. Known Differences Between the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition

The following table lists major differences between the Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition and ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition:
Table 1.  Known Differences and User Actions
Known Differences Action for Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition
Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition

The simulator executable path is not auto-populated in Tools > Options > EDA Tool Options.

The simulator executable path is auto-populated in Tools > Options > EDA Tool Options.

Follow the instructions in Specify EDA Tool Settings to specify the executable path.
If you open an existing project with ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition EDA tool settings, Intel® Quartus® Prime software replaces ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition with Questa* Intel® FPGA Edition since ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Edition is no longer valid. No action is required.

The simulator may fail during elaboration with the following message:

Error (suppressible): (vopt-14408) Intel FPGA Edition recommended capacity is 5000 non-OEM instances. There are …

This error is issued when the design capacity for the simulator is exceeded.

The same message is issued as a warning message.

Suppress this error and continue with simulation. However, the simulation runs 30X slower.

By default, the simulator does not preserve signals for waveform viewing.

Always preserves signals for waveform viewing.

Preserve signals explicitly by specifying vsim or vopt options, such as +acc. Refer to Add Signals to the Simulation for more information.
The windows executable launches the simulator with the vsim.exe file. The windows executable launches the simulator with the modelsim.exe file. Launch the simulator with the vsim.exe file.

The Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition is free, but it requires a zero-cost license.

The ModelSim* - Intel® FPGA Starter Edition does not require a license.

Obtain the Questa* Intel® FPGA Starter Edition license at no cost from Intel.