Quartus II Simulator Tools for Education

The Quartus^® II Simulator tools consist of two programs: QSim and the Waveform Editor. QSim is a graphical user interface (GUI) that is used to run simulations and launch the Waveform Editor. Also, QSim is used to set whether the simulation should be a functional or timing simulation. The Vector Waveform Editor is used to draw the test input signals for the simulation and select which signal should be shown in the simulation results.

For Quartus II version 10.1 and 11.0, the QSim tool and Waveform Editor must be installed separately by using the University Program Installer (listed below). Beginning with the Quartus II version 11.1, the QSim tool and Waveform Editor are bundled with the Quartus II software. The QSim tool can be invoked from a command window by using the command "quartus_sh --qsim". The quartus_sh executable is part of the Quartus II software. It can be found in the folder where the Quartus II software is installed, for example C:\altera\12.0\quartus\bin. For this example of an installation folder you would type the command C:\altera\12.0\quartus\bin\quartus_sh --qsim. Note that if you are using the Quartus II Subscription Edition software and you are running a 64-bit operating system, then the executable is found in quartus\bin64\.

The following table shows the available tutorial for these tools and the program used to install these tools. This installer is only required to be used in conjunction with the Quartus II software versions 11.0 and 10.1 only. The table also has a patch to correct a problem with simulating circuits for Cyclone IV devices with the Quartus II software versions 12.1, 12.0 and 11.1.