Computer System and Setup Recommendations? (case 2912)

[jarvis24]

DirectRT tends to be the more demanding of the two, so if you can please it then you'll likely be good for MediaLab also. DirectRT and MediaLab both use strictly 2-D graphics so the video card does not have to be the most expensive available. In fact, it's hard to go wrong with pretty much any of the new cards (esp. ATI, Matrox). Way back when, I would recommend 32mb of video memory but now it's pretty hard to get less than that. As with sound cards, just make sure you avoid getting a cheap chip that's built into the motherboard as opposed to it being a tradional "card" that resides in one of your system's slots. PCI or AGP cards are best for video and PCI is best for sound. You'll want to make sure the sound card supports "hardware buffering" if you plan on doing any voice capture/RT work but most of the new SoundBlasters will do this (Audigy, Live!). If you go with Dell and take their upgrades on the video and audio capabilities, you should be fine.

As for general advice, I always recommend going with a company that excels at hardware reliability and customer support such as Dell or IBM. Dell is probably the best way to go if you're looking at a desktop solution. For laptops, I have always loved IBM's ThinkPads (I developed much of DirectRT on one).

As far as screens go, LCD screens are great unless you're planning any super fast display times. If so, then CRT is usually the way to go. LCD's are usually limited to a 16.67ms refresh rate which means your stimuli must be displayed in intervals of that. Most people don't care. Others want more control (e.g., 5-12ms refresh rates are possible). For more on this, see http://www.empirisoft.com/Support/showthread.php?t=71

If you want to send a given configuration my way, I'd be happy to look at it. But be sure to run it by your IT people too--especially if they'll be the ones stuck fixing it if anything goes wrong!

And since you’re shopping, I ought to throw in a plug here for our millisecond accurate keyboards. They can reduce the error rate on regular keyboard responses by 5-30ms+ and they are beautiful. Well worth the money if you can swing it. We are build super fast plug and play response boxes for RT work. See our hardware page for more detail and let me know if you're interested and I can get you a quote on whatever you like. Both the precision keyboards and response boxes are compatible with ALL software (PC and Mac) since they look to Windows and Macs like traditional keyboards.

Finally, cnet.com is a good place to start for reviews of current hardware.

Hope that helps!
Blair