VI Server Effect on Time Critical Loop?

[R6]

I have a Time Critical Loop (TCL) running on a PXI RT controller.  I need to create a display/calibration application for a remote host (local private network).  I am not at all impressed with the RT COM Wizard, especially for large applications with lots of indicators/controls.  I don’t need or want FIFOs.  Also, the RTC wizard creates a code editing nightmare.

I would like to use VI Server to create a VI running on the remote host which reads all indicators and writes all controls of the RT TCL.  My question is:  Will VI Server have any effect on the jitter of the RT TCL?  Or will it just wait for idle time on the target before it accesses the controls and indicators?  If it waits, then I would expect the VI Server communication to suffer as the RT TCL load increases, right?

BTW, is there any application out there, whatever the cost, that generically acts as a display/calibration interface to remotely running VIs?  We have a need for a tool that will grab a list of controls/indicators and display them.  Then we want to drag and drop them on a window for creating a display/cal front end.  Preferably the remote VI does not have to know anything about the display host, other than allowing it VI server access.  I am probably describing something that involves auto-coding.  Don’t want to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks!

[mikeporter]

I have not tried what you are talking about but approaching the matter logically I would think that the VI server task would just be one more thing added into the RT controller's "to do" list. The reason I say that is that the remote code has to actually get executed on the remote machine, because there's no guarantee that there will be the same OS running on both ends of the wire--in fact in a RT system the OS is guaranteed to be different. Which means that if it's being executed in the RT environment it will have all the same constraints as the other code executing on the machine--like scheduling.

So having said that, yes I would expect the VI server response time to go to heck in a handbasket when the TCL really gets cranking.

BTW: I don't know of any products that do what you are talking about, but how much would you be willing to pay...

Mike (who's always looking for an interesting project)...