What is the penalty in interrupt mode?

[Ignacio Bonafonte]

I am very interested in knowing the limitations of interrupt mode for my application. I will use a 4472 and I need max sampling rate (100 KS/s each channel), connected to a 6034 (1 channel 100 KHz) with RTSI. I will use pre-trigger mode. Will interrupt mode support this?
I need interrupt mode because i need to know when the trigger arrives in order to "more or less" sinchronize with some devices not from national

[Filipe A.]

Ignacio;

I'm assuming you are interested on configuring the data transfer of your data acquisition devices to be interrupt based.

If that is the case, the data transfer performance will drop in relation to the DMA based data transfer. Furthermore, the data transfer will be system dependent, meaning that the maximum transfer rate will be determine by how fast your machine handles the interrupts.

The only limitation is the sample rate of your acquisition. In case you set the data transfer to be interrupt based, you will probably need to drop the sample rate in order the on board FIFO not to be overflowed.

Hope this helps.
Filipe A.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments