Do MediaLab and DirectRT work with Macs?

[jhalbers@psy.otago.ac.nz]

Our Department has a site license for Medialab, and I'd really like to use it, but I can't get a confident answer on whether it will work in my Macintosh lab. The consensus I have found, culling through this forum, is "probably": Medialab itself seems to run ok when booting up in Windows, not necessarily using Mac's "parallels" (much preferred from my perspective). And the jury is still out on DirectRt.

Can you give a more definitive answer? My studies are usually cognitive paradigms involving some combination of picture or video presentation and questionnaire and response time data. I want to go with your company but not if there will be any doubt about the validity of my data.

Thanks for any clarity you can offer!

JH


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. Jamin Halberstadt
Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56 Dunedin, New Zealand
(03) 479-8289 (work phone)
(03) 479-8335 (fax)
(027) 688-9899 (cell)
[intern'l callers add the country code (64) and drop the "0" in the city code]
jhalbers@psy.otago.ac.nz
http://psy.otago.ac.nz/staff/halberstadt.html

[AaronNewman]

I've been running DirectRT on Mac Pro and MacBook Pro hardware for almost 2 years now, for behavioural and ERP studies, and can attest that DirectRT works perfectly on Macs running Windows through BootCamp. In this mode you are really just running Windows the way you would on any other Intel-based hardware - BootCamp just takes care of setting up your computer so that you can boot into OS X or Windows, installing drivers for the Mac hardware, etc.. - it is in no way an emulation or virtualization. Parallels (and VMware Fusion) are however virtualizations and cannot be expected to be as reliable as you need for cognitive research. Rebooting between Mac and Windows OSes is easy anyway, and it's not like you're going to be checking your mail or doing anything else in Mac OS while running a subject anyway

The only oddity I've experienced is that on the MacBook Pro (but not on the MacPro), there seems to be some weirdness with the video card such that DirectRT runs at whatever screen resolution that Windows is set to, not the resolution you specify in the Styles file. But I haven't updated this machine's BootCamp to the current version that ships with Leopard (which has updated video drivers), so this may be fixed as well. At any rate it's a trivial problem really.

[jarvis24]

Aaron--thanks so much for the thorough update!!

[jarvis24]

[edited from support email]

I recently installed DirectRT on my laptop, but have had difficulty running the samples in your training - it comes up with the following message:


DirectRT can not determine your display's refresh rate which is critical for accurate timing. The cause of this problem is usually an outdated or disabled video driver, or disabled video acceleration in your video settings. If you need help resolving this issue please report this error to support at www.empirisoft.com. Error #6. Overflow


I am running this program on my Mac, via Parallels with Windows XP and all attempts to reinstall drivers have been met with reports that they are installed ok. I have attached a diag report, as suggested in your manual.


I am tempted to simply switch to your beta program for Macs instead of trying to run it through Windows - would it be possible to switch my license to this if you can't help me with the problem with the program?

See above for discussion regarding Parallels versus BootCamp and see if that helps.

[Rene Kopietz]

Hi all,

I just registered ML on my Mac using Crossover. I opened an que-file and it
seemed to work.

So, besides bootcamp (which is basically Windows) you can run ML on a Mac
via at least three platforms now: Parallels, VMWare Fusion, and Crossover. Just so you know

All the best,
Rene

[Thomas]

Ah, cool. If it runs with CrossOver on a Mac, it should also run on Linux by using Wine (CrossOver is a proprietary clone of Wine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)) for Linux). Wrong thread, I know, it's all about the Macs here. However, MacOS is based on UNIX, and so is Linux.

All the best,
Tom

[jarvis24]

This is all great, info, thanks all!

Quick update re: Parallels 5.0 as Nov 9, 2009:

Intels Macs running DirectRT and MediaLab seemlessly on XP, Vista or Windows 7--right along side OSX? Eeek! Taken straight from Tekserve's site here in NYC (link to Apple's info on it below):

With Parallels Desktop, Windows applications run great on a Mac, even side-by-side with Mac OS X.

Parallels Desktop 5 lets you seamlessly run Windows programs on the Mac OS – without rebooting. You can easily drag-and-drop documents, pictures, and music between Windows and Mac applications, and launch your Windows programs right from your Mac's dock.

With Parallels, you don't even have to see the Windows desktop – you can make Windows invisible while using its applications. Or, if you're new to Mac, you can keep the familiar Windows background and Start Menu. And, if you're a little bit of both, choose as much Mac or Windows as you need, without compromising performance.

If you already use Parallels Desktop, the new version 5 adds over 65 new features and enhancements, making it faster, smarter, and more powerful than ever. Parallels Desktop 5 adds full Windows 7 compatibility and Snow Leopard support; up to seven times faster graphics performance; improved USB compatibility and speed; support for multi-touch gestures in Windows applications; and more.

If this is true, my PCs are toast (ha ha).

For Apple's info on Parallels Desktop for Mac 5.0, see also: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...topformac.html

Opinions, experiences, musings welcome and encouraged!!