SPICE Simulators

[Wimberleytech]

I saw a post earlier where TINA was used to simulate a circuit.  Had not heard of it but now see it is  from TI.
The other vendor-supplied SPICE simulator is LTSpice.

I would be interested in thoughts comparing the two.

I've played with LTSpice a little bit and find the graphical interface to be a little clunky but, beyond that, it seems pretty complete.

[IconicPCB]

I am looking at a Russian offering , SimOne.

Looks like so much more than LTspice, a different mindset in terms of user interface.

Otherwise i too use LTspice.

[John Heath]

I have LTSpice but it will not run . It does not like my user32.dll file on win vista. I heard it will work on win 7. I do have Tina simulator and a ton of experience as I have had and used it for at least 24 hours , ha.  However I can give first impressions. The negative first . It seems to have obvious problems that should have been fix long ago such as hard to connect a wire from A to B. No excuse for that so shame on TL. Their poor on line help people squirming in their chair saying things like " Ho just delete and start over and it will be fine" . Ya delete 2 hours of work and redo and it will be fine. The solution is to find the one who wrote the code and find a more suitable area for he or she to work in , making coffee perhaps. I digress. Another negative is it slices time into n seconds for tranceint simulation and there is no way to adjust it to u seconds. The end result waiting 10 of minutes for an over kill simulation that is not necessary in most cases.

On the plus side I find it easier to use over , time 24 hours , and fun as well.

I was given a download link from a member in this group Timb who knows more about it.

http://www.ti.com/tool/TINA-TI

[Wimberleytech]

I have LTSpice but it will not run . It does not like my user32.dll file on win vista. I heard it will work on win 7. I do have Tina simulator and a ton of experience as I have had and used it for at least 24 hours , ha.  However I can give first impressions. The negative first . It seems to have obvious problems that should have been fix long ago such as hard to connect a wire from A to B. No excuse for that so shame on TL. Their poor on line help people squirming in their chair saying things like " Ho just delete and start over and it will be fine" . Ya delete 2 hours of work and redo and it will be fine. The solution is to find the one who wrote the code and find a more suitable area for he or she to work in , making coffee perhaps. I digress. Another negative is it slices time into n seconds for tranceint simulation and there is no way to adjust it to u seconds. The end result waiting 10 of minutes for an over kill simulation that is not necessary in most cases.

On the plus side I find it easier to use over , time 24 hours , and fun as well.

I was given a download link from a member in this group Timb who knows more about it.

http://www.ti.com/tool/TINA-TI

Ouch!  Sounds like Tina has a ways to go.  LTspice has been around for a long time, so likely less buggy.

I figured out how to "easily" create my own device models today.  That earns a thumbs up from me. 
Thanks for the response!

[Zero999]

I use LTSpice nearly all the time. I've tried TINA but I didn't really like it. I don't know why, I just prefer LTSpice, although it was awhile ago since I used anything else.

If LTSpice isn't running, then it's most likely a Windows problem. I've found it crashes more often under the pile of poo known as Windows 10, more than any other OS, including Linux, which runs it under WINE (a Windows compatibility layer) rather than natively.

Does TINA run under WINE?

[Ian.M]

LTspice XVII runs on Windows 7 upwards, so wont run on Vista.  LTspice IV runs on old versions of windows from Win98 and NT4 upwards.   You'll find it on the LT software page as "Download LTspice for Windows XP (End of Support) "  http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/#LTSpice

[rx8pilot]

Wishing LT Spice had a more polished UI.
I would pay $$ for that. Since I am not a daily user, I have to re-learn it each time I load it up.

[Wimberleytech]

Here is a better UI
https://emagtech.com/product/b2-spice-ad/

I have been using their Spice for many many years (back when they were BeigeBag Software).

UI sits on top of Berkeley Spice3

$600

[tombi]

This entry on the LTWiki about running under linux made me chuckle. See http://ltwiki.org/LTspiceHelpXVII/LTspiceHelp/html/Running_Under_Linux.htm

"How does the performance running under Linux compare to running under Windows?

Every Linux user you ask will tell you that LTspice runs better under Linux than Windows.

Wow, cool! Does it really?

No."

[SiliconWizard]

Been using LTSpice for a long time.
Sometimes I complement it with ngspice. http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/

LTSpice is good, but I've found the LTSpice XVII to be more buggy than LTSpice IV, especially the waveform viewer which frequently does weird redraws or just gets stuck in a loop.
One  way to make it bug (at least on my machines) is to have the waveform viewer maximized in the LTSpice window, then minimize LTSpice itself and restore it (something I do quite often when working): the waveform viewer will get stuck in a seemingly infinite loop of drawing updates, and you have to kill the process. I've found a couple other bugs with the waveform viewer. Otherwise, the simulator itself is quite decent.

[John Heath]

Been using LTSpice for a long time.
Sometimes I complement it with ngspice. http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/

LTSpice is good, but I've found the LTSpice XVII to be more buggy than LTSpice IV, especially the waveform viewer which frequently does weird redraws or just gets stuck in a loop.
One  way to make it bug (at least on my machines) is to have the waveform viewer maximized in the LTSpice window, then minimize LTSpice itself and restore it (something I do quite often when working): the waveform viewer will get stuck in a seemingly infinite loop of drawing updates, and you have to kill the process. I've found a couple other bugs with the waveform viewer. Otherwise, the simulator itself is quite decent.

I would like to try LTSpice 4 but can not find it. It will say it is LTspice 4 on the download button but it delivers LTSpice 17 ?? Need a web site that still has LTSpice 4 to download. 

[Wimberleytech]

I would like to try LTSpice 4 but can not find it. It will say it is LTspice 4 on the download button but it delivers LTSpice 17 ?? Need a web site that still has LTSpice 4 to download.

John, I sent you a PM with a link to my server.

[John Heath]

I would like to try LTSpice 4 but can not find it. It will say it is LTspice 4 on the download button but it delivers LTSpice 17 ?? Need a web site that still has LTSpice 4 to download.

John, I sent you a PM with a link to my server.

That one went past me . In the cold resistor thread. I will check it out and thanks.

[Ian.M]

Its still up on LT's site on the page I linked earlier.
Direct link: http://ltspice.linear-tech.com/software/LTspiceIV.exe

[ahbushnell]

I saw a post earlier where TINA was used to simulate a circuit.  Had not heard of it but now see it is  from TI.
The other vendor-supplied SPICE simulator is LTSpice.

I would be interested in thoughts comparing the two.

I've played with LTSpice a little bit and find the graphical interface to be a little clunky but, beyond that, it seems pretty complete.

Recently I have used LTspice, Tina and now PLECS.  All are good and have there points.  I purchased a full up version of Tina.  You can use VHDL and C with it which I like.  I use PLECS most of the time now but it's not for the casual user because of the cost.  But it's very powerful.  I love state machines which are very powerful.  That's a real problem with Spice programs when complex control is required.

[John Heath]

LTSpice IV is now instauled and is running without errors. Good stuff. Thanks guys.

[John Heath]

I pulled an example from ltspice 4 of an op-amp filter. The simulation was quick with no waiting. Now we are cooking. 

[Zero999]

This entry on the LTWiki about running under linux made me chuckle. See http://ltwiki.org/LTspiceHelpXVII/LTspiceHelp/html/Running_Under_Linux.htm

"How does the performance running under Linux compare to running under Windows?

Every Linux user you ask will tell you that LTspice runs better under Linux than Windows.

Wow, cool! Does it really?

No."

In my experience, LTspice XVII 64-bit is certainly more stable under WINE, than Windows 10. It certainly crashes less often.

The only problem I've had is a WINE update breaking it. In the short term, I used the 32-bit version, which still worked. In the longer term, the next WINE update fixed it. This isn't a reason not to use LTSpice under WINE, because Windows 10 updates have the potential to break it too.

[T3sl4co1l]

LTSpice is supported in WINE, FWIW.  If you can't get it to work, let Helmut know.

Tim

[tjhoe16]

I've spent a lot of time using both ltspice and Tina. My interest in tina was too have access to a wide assortment of TI parts. Eventually I moved away from Tina in favor of ltspice since a lot of time I'm just simulating general circuit behavior rather than relying on some ideal model of an analog part I'm interested in. At the end of the day spice will only get you so far. I find it much faster to draw schematics in ltspice once you learn shortcuts and there are a lot of advanced features hidden from the UI that can be accessed through spice commands. I run Ubuntu at home and windows 10 at work, never had an issue with the software crashing on either system to be honest.

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