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welcome to our old site
as of march, 2005, we have moved to the all new
www.empirisoft.com
rip, our beloved, circa 1998
version, for eternity here at
old.empirisoft.com
if you ended up here via mistake or crazy link,
please let us know. in the meantime, feel free to stroll our
gardens and take in all the refreshing empirisoft days of yore
namaste
If
you are already a DirectRT user and are interested in upgrading to
DirectRT
v2004, see What's New in
DirectRT v2004. If you would like to upgrade or
purchase DirectRT now, please visit our order page for details
on how to get new or upgraded licenses.
If you're new to
DirectRT, this page provides
an overview of the program and a summary of features (old and new). If
you would like more details about DirectRT, you can preview
DirectRT's
user-friendly
manual.
Timing is Everything! DirectRT is all about
timing. Windows is generally a very chaotic environment to work in when it comes to
controlling the timing of events. At least it has been until Microsoft
recently introduced DirectX, a software development platform that provides programmers with direct
access to your computer’s hardware. For our purposes, the most important element of
DirectX is DirectDraw—a system allowing direct access to your computers display
hardware. What this means essentially is that the timing of what you see on the screen and
when you see it can be controlled with great precision. Commonly used for the development
of high-end 2 and 3D graphics applications and video games, DirectX provides a programming
environment ideally suited for the rigorous demands of computerized psychological
experimentation.
For the purpose of conducting studies in the
Windows environment that require highly accurate response times to visual stimuli (e.g.,
priming studies), DirectRT is an ideal solution. Because it takes advantage of Microsoft's
DirectX technology, no special hardware is required to get high quality RT's (even with a
standard keyboard, error is remarkably low). It also means precisely located and
precisely timed stimuli.
Like MediaLab, DirectRT was designed as a
tool to help both technologically savvy and technologically challenged researchers with
their creation of powerful computerized experiments. The priorities in
designing the interface of DirectRT were: 1) to create a high precision stimulus display
and reaction time package capable of tapping the tremendous resources of current PCs, 2)
to maintain a high degree of flexibility with respect to experimental design, and 3) to
maintain an exceptionally high degree of intuitive, user-friendly operation.
Try it out for 21 days and see if it will
help you with your research needs. DirectRT comes with extensive help files and
printed documentation (including a 100 page manual), over 20 sample files and tutorials
that step you through the basics, and an editing environment that is extremely easy to
use.
The following is an overview of the current features and system requirements for
DirectRT. Let us know if there are other features you need and we'll try to build
them in. In addition to taking a look at the features here, the best way to get a
feel for DirectRT is to actually try it out. Download it and we'll send you an
authorization code to try it out for 21 days. We suggest heading straight to the
Help menu and clicking on "Samples." We've got about three hours worth of
tutorials and samples that will give you a good sense of the program. If you can
make it through the tutorials you will be able to do just about anything that DirectRT can
handle.
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Timing resolution of 1 millisecond.
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Response timing is synchronized with the screen display so timing always
begins when the screen first begins to draw (eliminates 10-17 milliseconds
of random error).
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Works with Windows to pause all other system events while timing is taking
place. With everything else put on hold, the highest processing priority
possible is given to DirectRT during the critical time intervals on each
trial.
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Uses Microsoft’s DirectX to gain the fastest access possible to input
events from the keyboard, mouse, joystick and soundcard.
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Optionally define minimum and maximum
response times and deliver custom message
screens for each when violated.
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Collect multiple response times
on a single trial.
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Collect key release response times
in addition to key press times.
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Define valid keys
for any response.
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Define 'correct'
key for any response.
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Optionally require a correct response
(see the IAT sample).
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Keyboard, mouse, and joystick input
for single keypress or button responses.
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Short open ended (fill-in-the-blank)
responses.
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Voice responses via microphone
connected to your soundcard (ask
us about a test you can do to see if your sound card can handle it).
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Option of saving voice responses as
wav files on your hard drive.
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Continuous joystick motion.
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TTL
signals
can be read from a defined port to gather data from external equipment.
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Create as many
different displays as you need for any given trial.
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Play sound, video
and animation files with tremendous precision.
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Can handle multiple
simultaneous and/or sequential sound files, with control over left/right
panning and frequency (Hz). Easily synchronized with visual stimuli.
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Send precisely synchronized TTL
signals to communicate with external
equipment (e.g., another computer controlling physiological equipment).
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Present subject's own responses
to open ended questions as stimuli in the same session.
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Easily create full screens of
instructions with formatted text.
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Create multiple style settings
with choices of fonts and display colors.
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Present full colour graphics
that can be as large as full screen and in
any resolution from 640x480
up to 1024x768,
1600x1200 and beyond.
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Present multiple
images and/or text in succession or simultaneously.
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Superimpose custom graphics
you make (e.g., special rating scales) over any other image or text.
Great for pretesting and rating visual stimuli.
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Capture screens from Microsoft PowerPoint
and other presentation software and present them as stimulus or
instruction screens in your experiment.
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Precisely locate images and text
with flexible and easy to use alignment options.
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Display of stimulus
screens is synchronized with the monitor’s refresh rate resulting in
highly controlled presentation rates.
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Enter stimulus presentation times
in milliseconds. DirectRT will determine the screen refresh rate and will
present the stimulus for the number of screen refreshes that will comes
closest to your specified interval. All actual display times are written
to a log file for each session.
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Randomize trials
within a single block.
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Randomize the order
that blocks of trials are presented.
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Randomly select which
items from a set are presented.
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Extremely flexible
trial design which can change from one trial to the next.
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Define stimuli
directly in the input file or refer to stimulus lists.
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Access stimuli from
lists sequentially, randomly, or randomly without replacement.
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Create scale responses
and multiple choice questions in any format.
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Skip pattern
capability when a particular key is pressed on any trial.
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Jump capability
-Depending on which key is pressed you can have DirectRT jump to different
events (e.g., such as a feedback sequence) and then resume where it left
off.
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Option of self-paced
or time-limited responses.
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Repeat trials for
which stimuli were randomly selected at run-time.
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Writes data to an
easy-to-analyze ASCII file.
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Add optional variables
to the data file that identify within subject trial conditions-makes for
much easier analysis.
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Writes all data into a
single file that can be imported straight into Excel or SPSS.
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Includes a utility to easily merge
data files collected on different computers.
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Produces two data files
per run-one that is simplified and easy to use for most purposes and a
more detailed ‘log’ version that records everything including
actual stimulus presentation times so you can ensure that your system is
capable of achieving the timing you need.
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Easily modify and
re-use your input files experiments.
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You don’t have to
learn a new editor! Do everything from your favourite spreadsheet
application (e.g., Excel). If you know how to
edit a spreadsheet, then you already know how to edit DirectRT input files.
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Also works great in
combination with MediaLab (versions 2000 and later). Just drop a DirectRT
session into any MediaLab questionnaire. MediaLab will ask DirectRT to
execute the session and will pass along the current subject and condition
IDs. When DirectRT is finished, MediaLab will resume where it left off.
This is a great way to assign multiple DirectRT input files as a function
of between subject factors.
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Runs easily from a
command line prompt so you can call the session and execute it seamlessly
from within your own programs.
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Context sensitive help
such that pressing F1 at any time will help you with what you are
currently doing.
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Easy-to-use intuitive
interface--no programming code necessary.
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In order to execute input
files, DirectRT requires that Microsoft’s DirectX
Version 7 or later be installed. If you don’t already have it, there is a
link to it here:
Microsoft
DirectX.
Note
that if you have Windows ME, 2000, or XP you will already have DirectX
Version 7 or later installed.
installation may be necessary only for Windows95 and Window98.
DirectRT should run very
well on any high-end Pentium system (or equivalent), running Windows 95, 98,
ME, 2000 or XP. DirectRT will not run on Windows NT because NT does not
support
beyond version 4 (7 or later is required). It is strongly recommended that
systems running DirectRT have at least 64mb of memory, a graphics card with
at least 4mb of video memory and a processor speed of at least 300mhz. The
log files that DirectRT produces will show you whether or not the computer
in question can handle your experimental design.
You can tell which version
of
is installed on your machine by typing ‘dxdiag’ from the run command on the
Start menu. If
is installed, doing this will tell you which version you are currently
running. If you have version 7 or later installed, you can click on the
‘Display’ tab to ensure that there are no problems or warnings given with
regard to the compatibility between
and your display adaptor (video card). If there are no warnings, then all
should be ok. If you’ll be using sound with DirectRT, you can do the same
with the ‘Sound’ tab.
Finally, it is also necessary to have a spreadsheet
application installed (e.g., Excel) if you plan to edit or view the DirectRT
input and output files on that machine-or if you plan to try the DirectRT
on-line tutorials. All input and output files are created and saved in .CSV
format which is editable from any standard spreadsheet application. See
File Format
for more details. You do NOT have to have a spreadsheet application
installed simply to run the experiments and gather data. Note that users in
a few countries may have to set their ‘Regional Settings’ in the Windows
Control Panel to that of the United States in order to correctly view and
edit .csv
files in Excel.
DirectRT
Pricing
If you have any questions, we would be
happy to discuss them with you.
Blair Jarvis, Ph.D., Author of MediaLab and DirectRT
jarvis@...com
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