Summary of VXI in VISA

Since the VISA API is very similar to the NI-VXI API, and both provide almost the same VXI functionality, which should you choose? National Instruments recommends using the VISA API because it allows you to control multiple VXI systems (controllers) from a single computer, provides a more flexible API that allows you to move to other interfaces if the application demands it, and usually provides equal or better performance. However, if your application already uses NI-VXI and you are programming only VXI devices, then there is not a strong reason for you to change the application to VISA. For new applications, though, VISA is almost always preferred. Finally, most modern instrument drivers rely on VISA for their I/O needs, so if you are using instrument drivers, then you need to at least install NI-VISA for them to be able to execute.