Beersmith 2 Yeast Starter

I have just been playing around with the program now that it's on mac and have been noticing some big differences with the yeast starter calculations compared to Mr. Malty calculations.

I am at work so going off what I can remember a 1.050 beer with a yeast starter using a stirplate the Beersmith 2 program said I need a .4L starter and Mr. Malty said I need around a 1L starter. Anyone else have the same issues? Just trying to figure out which one is more accurate.

Unfortunately, without a hemocytometer, it's tough to say. Mr. Malty's yeast population algorithm is relatively conservative, and it sounds like BeerSmith's is relatively liberal. Neither of them are more than best guesses.