Psychtoolbox updated

kleinerm

Psychtoolbox 3.0.21.0 “Fruity Aspirational Cashcow” was released at 31st March 2025.

You can download it as a zip file from the following link:

https://github.com/Psychtoolbox-3/Psychtoolbox-3/releases/download/3.0.21.0/3.0.21.0.zip

This marks the end of life and any and all support for Psychtoolbox 3.0.20, what a short but eventful life it had! This release is strongly recommended to upgrade to if you are a user of Psychtoolbox 3.0.20 on macOS or Windows, as it allows most reliable and smooth use under the new paid software license subscription model that launches today, the 31st of March 2025.

The complete development history can be found in our GitHub repository. The release tag is “3.0.21.0”, with the full tree and commit logs under the URL:

https://github.com/Psychtoolbox-3/Psychtoolbox-3/tree/3.0.21.0

This Psychtoolbox release was sponsored by Mathworks under the year 2024/2025 contract for significant enhancements, sponsoring the OpenXR hand tracking support as major new feature.

Compatibility changes wrt. Psychtoolbox 3.0.20.4:

  • None.

Highlights:

  • Only improvements for license management for a hopefully smooth imminent start of the new software subscription licensing model on Apple macOS and MS-Windows.

  • We strongly recommend upgrading from Psychtoolbox 3.0.20 to 3.0.21 at your earliest convenience if you are a macOS or MS-Windows user, which will require a paid subscription license for versions 3.0.20 and later very soon! Previous users of Psychtoolbox 3.0.20 will have until 14th April 2025 to buy a license, as their free trial will run out during that day. New users will have a 14 day free trial on a given machine until they have to buy and activate a license.

  • This release is probably one of the very last ones, possibly the last one, to support almost end-of-life Ubuntu 20.04-LTS or other Linux distributions older than Ubuntu 22.04.5-LTS and equivalent, e.g., Debian GNU/Linux 12.0 (Bookworm).

All:

  • Improvements to license management via PsychLicenseManagement(); for imminent launch of the new software licensing business model on MS-Windows and macOS:

    • Allow a configurable maximum offline time (grace period) of more than 30 days.
    • Improved status messages.
    • Built in “News” push message support.
    • Support for offline “air-gapped” activation of licenses for select customers.

  • Various other smaller refinements, bug fixes and documentation updates.

Linux:

  • Psychtoolbox was built and tested against Matlab R2024a and Octave 5.2 and later.

Windows:

  • Psychtoolbox was built and tested against Matlab R2024a and Octave 7.3.

macOS:

  • Psychtoolbox was built and tested against native Matlab R2024a and against native Octave 9.4 from HomeBrew, on macOS 13.7.4 Ventura for Intel Macs, and on macOS 14.5 Sonoma for Apple Silicon Macs.

Enjoy!