Converting between Mac and PC

SuperLab SuperLab 4 Support
1

Hi,

I am an inexperienced researcher and a rookie to superlab.

I have a MacBook - but the computer I will be using to run subjects in the lab is a PC. If I program my experiment on my mac, will I then be able to save it on my flash drive and run it on the PC in the lab??

Thanks!

2

Yes, but there are a few limitations:

  1. If you use text events, you will have to redefine your fonts on the PC. The same is true if you go in the opposite direction. If you go back and forth, SuperLab should remember what font you last chose on a given platform, but it is currently unable to translate for you, and it doesn’t have a friendly user interface to help you.

  2. If the experiment uses a plug-in that is not present, it will not open. Currently, the only plug-ins that are platform-specific are the Microphone Input plug-in (on the Mac) and the Measurement Computing IO plugins (on the PC). If this capability is a feature you need, please let us know.

  3. The drawing engines are not identical on the two platforms. For example: on the Mac, the text is drawn with a transparent background, while this currently can’t be done on Windows. Also, on Mac OS X 10.4.x, refresh on VSYNC is set in stone, while this rule can be broken in the Windows implementation (and Mac OS X 10.3.9).

  4. The two platforms also don’t have an identical list of supported stimulus formats. For images, jpeg and gif are safest. For movies, MPEG1 and DivX are safest (assuming you have the DivX software installed on each). For audio, WAV and AIFF are the only formats supported on Windows. (If you are using the Sound plug-in instead of the recommended Audio plug-in, WAV is the only format supported on Windows). On the Mac, QuickTime is used for most everything, but format supported is more limited on Windows.

3

Re: Converting between Mac and PC

Do run a SuperLab experiment created on a Mac on a PC, does the PC also need to have SuperLab installed, i.e., do I need to purchase both SuperLab for Macintosh AND SuperLab for Windows? Thanks for your help.

4

SuperLab for PC and Mac are two separate programs. If you only have a license for a PC computer then you will have to purchase one for the Mac in order to run the experiment.