DirectRT Version 2012.4

[jarvis24]

First public release of DirectRT v2012. Posted March 16th, 2012.

Changes, updates and bug fixes included in v2012 are documented here.

As we continue to update v2012, all licensed users will have free access to the new releases (as well as any earlier versions). Announcement of new releases, feature additions, bug fixes and other updates will be regularly posted here.

Most of the changes in v2012 reflect our efforts to bump up DirectRT's compatibility with the newest versions of Windows (Vista, 7, 8) while maintaining compatibility with earlier versions such as XP.

Some other specific changes of note:

IP-base licensing no longer requires the user to deal with dll files. When departmental, school and campus wide site licenses are purchased. we are now hard coding the IP ranges into the software so that the user-experience is seamless, quick and easy.

The changes in the user interface seen in v2008.2 and v2010.2 have been removed and replaced with the older look and feel that users were used to. These changes may be refined and seen again in the 2014 version.

A common "Overflow" error that prevented many Windows 7 machine from running DirectRT has been remedied.

We are still working out some issues having to deal with systems that use an ATI Radeon HD graphics display card/adapter. While switching out graphics cards is a known solution, we are still working on a software fix.

Users with DirectIN keyboards and Button Boxes are now able to use these precision input devices without issue on Windows 7--send an email to service @ empirisoft.com for the fix if you are having any trouble with this.


On March 16, 2012, internal (IP based) site licenses were hard coded for:

• University of New South Wales, Department of Psychology
• Universität Augsburg, Department of Communication
• University of Central Michigan, Department of Psychology
• Michigan State University, Department of Communication
• University of Missouri, Kansas City, School of Business
• Ohio State University, Department of Psychology

Errors that occur during a session that appear in a dialog box are now delayed until the end of the session. We found this prevented some accounts of freezing or locking up when the message box would appear "behind" the DirectRT full screen display. Waiting until the session ends has fixed this source of freezing.

A detailed error log is now recorded in the main DirectRT folder--called "performance.txt". If you encounter any errors, you can send us this file to help us figure out what's going on. For example, in many cases it will tell us exactly where in the programming code, the problem is occurring. It's not meant to be especially user friendly! You can also delete or clear this file any time. DirectRT will always generate a new one from scratch if you want to start it fresh.

[jarvis24]

Updated third party controls slmixerpro.ocx and spr32x30.ocx.

Updated version displayed on error message box to read "v2012" rather than "v2010"

Added internal site license for University of Bielfield (Germany), Department of Psychology.

[jarvis24]

Added internal site license for Texas A&M

[jarvis24]

When running the voice response setup, sometimes an error would occur:
"Component 'SLMixerPro.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered; a file is missing or invalid." This is fixed now in v2012.4.152.

When collecting voice responses as .wav sound files, the sound files were not being saved and a "voice" data subfolder was not being generated. This is fixed in v2012.4.152