Flavors and Versions

By default, Psychtoolbox provides the so called beta branch or flavor. The beta branch provides the latest features, performance enhancements and bug fixes. These features have been tested by the developers on the system configurations at their disposal and should be reasonably safe for real world use.

However, there may be undiscovered bugs, and with the very limited resources new stuff needs to see real world use to shake out remaining bugs. We rely on you for the testing of new features and for feedback about problems or bugs.

Versioned Releases

The beta branch of PTB is normally updated for the purpose of introducing bug fixes, new features or incremental improvements. Thus the beta branch pushes out rolling releases.

Executing the command PsychtoolboxVersion should return the version number, flavor and revision number of your current Psychtoolbox. The command also prints a web URL, which points to the online change log where you can read in detail what has changed between different revisions. Since 8th January 2024, this may no longer be the case for new Psychtoolbox downloads and updates.

Before any potentially disruptive changes are merged into the beta branch, we tag and release a new version of Psychtoolbox following the versioning scheme Psychtoolbox-3.x.y. Examples of such disruptive changes would be the discontinuation of support for an operating system, Matlab version, or a computer hardware platform - anything that could introduce functional regressions into your existing hardware and software environment. We recommend to stick with the beta branch, unless you have good reason not to do so, as it is the only officially tested and supported branch.

Previous Releases

The following releases of old Psychtoolbox versions are available.

To download and install the following versions, go to our GitHub repository and checkout or download the correspondlingly named Git branch.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.18
A snapshot of the code as of 17th February 2023: This was the final 3.0.18 release before start of the 3.0.19 series. 3.0.18 was the last version to support:

  • 64-Bit Octave-6.3 and 6.4 for MS-Windows and Apple macOS.

  • Minimal support for Microsoft Windows 7 and 8. Future versions will fail to work correctly on anything but Windows-10 or later.

  • Last version tested on macOS 10.15. Future versions may or may not work on the macOS 10.x and macOS 11 operating systems.

  • RaspberryPi OS 10. Going forward, only OS 11 is supported on 32-Bit ARM.

  • Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS tested. Going forward, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS still works, but testing happens mostly only on Ubuntu 22.04-LTS.

Requires 64-Bit GStreamer 1.18.5 MSVC on Microsoft Windows for both Matlab and Octave. GStreamer 1.18 recommended on macOS.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.17
A snapshot of the code as of beginning of October 2021: This was the final 3.0.17 release before start of the 3.0.18 series. 3.0.17 was the last version to support:

  • 64-Bit Octave-6.1 and 6.2 for MS-Windows and Apple macOS.

  • 64-Bit Octave-3.x and 4.x for GNU/Linux.

  • Ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS support. Going forward, only Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and later are supported.

  • Due to a bug, this version only runs on macOS 10.14 Mojave and later, instead of 10.11 El Capitan and later.

Requires 64-Bit GStreamer 1.18 MSVC on Microsoft Windows for both Matlab and Octave. GStreamer 1.18 recommended on macOS.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.16
A snapshot of the code as of beginning of November 2020: This was the final 3.0.16 release before start of the 3.0.17 series. 3.0.16 was the last version to support:

  • 64-Bit Octave-5 for MS-Windows and Apple macOS.

  • On Windows and macOS: GStreamer versions older than 1.18.0 MSVC, or any GStreamer MinGW builds. Now only GStreamer 1.18 MSVC builds are supported.

  • Official Linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS support. However, Linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or other distributions with at least GStreamer 1.8 should continue to work with v3.0.17, but are no longer tested or guaranteed to stay compatible.

  • Official macOS older than 10.15.7 support. Older macOS versions may continue to work with v3.0.17, but are no longer tested or guaranteed to stay compatible. Hope is that macOS 10.11 El Capitan and later should probably still work at least in parts.

  • Official Windows-7, Windows-8 and Windows-8.1 support. However, older versions than Windows-10 should currently continue to work with v3.0.17, but are no longer tested or guaranteed to stay compatible.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.15
A snapshot of the code as of beginning of August 2019: This was the final 3.0.15 release before start of the 3.0.16 series. 3.0.15 was the last version to support:

  • 64-Bit Octave-4.4.1 for MS-Windows.

  • On Windows: GStreamer versions older than 1.16.0, or any GStreamer MinGW builds. Now only MSVC builds are supported. This was the last version that allowed to avoid installing GStreamer on Windows if one does not need multi-media functionality.

  • 64-Bit Octave-4.4.1 for OSX.

  • Linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or other distributions with GStreamer versions older than 1.4.0.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.14
A snapshot of the code as of beginning of September 2018: This was the final 3.0.14 release before start of the 3.0.15 series. 3.0.14 was the last version to support:
Psychtoolbox-3.0.13
A snapshot of the code as of end of December 2016: This was the final 3.0.13 release before start of the 3.0.14 series. 3.0.13 was the last version to support:

  • 64-Bit Octave-4.0 for MS-Windows.

  • 64-Bit Octave-4.0 for OSX.

  • Mac OSX 10.10 “Yosemite”.

Future beta releases will only support/work on:

  • 64-Bit Octave-4.2 for Windows and OSX. Octave 3.8 and later on Linux.

  • 64-Bit Matlab on all operating systems, R2012a or later is recommended, earlier versions may or may not continue to work, but are no longer tested or supported in case of trouble.

  • OSX 10.11 El Capitan and OSX 10.12 Sierra. Only macOS Sierra is tested and somewhat supported in case of trouble.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.12
A snapshot of the code as of June 2016: This was the final 3.0.12 release before start of the 3.0.13 series. 3.0.12 was the last version to support:

  • 32-Bit Octave-4 for MS-Windows.

  • 64-Bit Octave-3.8 for OSX.

  • Mac OSX 10.8 “Mountain Lion” and OSX 10.9 “Mavericks”.

Future beta releases will only support/work on:

  • 64-Bit Octave-4 for Windows and OSX.

  • 64-Bit Matlab on all operating systems, R2012a or later is recommended, earlier versions may or may not continue to work, but are no longer tested or supported in case of trouble.

  • OSX 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Crapitan. Only El Crapitan is tested and somewhat supported in case of trouble.

  • On Linux i will no longer provide mex files for 32-Bit Octave for Intel machines for direct download from us. However, NeuroDebian / Debian upstream / Ubuntu upstream will continue to provide these mex files in a convenient fashion in their “app-stores”, so this is not really a drawback, just something to be aware of.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.11
A snapshot of the code as of September 2014: This was the final 3.0.11 release before start of the 3.0.12 series. It was the last version that supported 32-Bit Matlab on any operating system (specifically on Linux and Windows, as support for 32-Bit Matlab for OSX was cancelled already in 3.0.10). Going on, only 64-Bit Octave and Matlab are supported on all operating systems, and only 32-Bit Octave continues to be supported on Linux. This was also the last version to work on OSX versions older than 10.8 “Mountain Lion”, and to be tested and supported on MS-Windows versions older than Windows-7. Going on, Windows XP and later still should work, but we won’t test or optimize or provide any kind of support or bug fixes for anything older than Windows-7. Similarly we only provide official support for the very latest OSX version. Psychtoolbox-3.0.11 is also the last release to use the GStreamer-0.10 legacy multi-media framework for movie playback, movie writing, video capture and video recording. Future releases use and require GStreamer-1.0 or later for multi-media functionality.
Psychtoolbox-3.0.10
A snapshot of the code as of July 2013: This was the final 3.0.10 release before start of the 3.0.11 series. It was the last version that supported 32-Bit Matlab on OSX.

Automated download and installation of the following legacy versions is no longer possible! Click on the download link for a version, if such a link is provided, to download a zip file which approximately contains the code corresponding to that version. Unzip the file, then cd() into the Psychtoolbox subfolder of the extracted Psychtoolbox-3 folder. Then run the SetupPsychtoolbox function to set that old copy up for use. You will need a compatible Matlab/Octave version and operating system version for this to work. If you can’t find a download link, ask on the Psychtoolbox user forum for help.

Psychtoolbox-3.0.9
A snapshot of the code as of May 2012: This was the final 3.0.9 release before start of the 3.0.10 series. It was the last version that supports Matlab versions older than V7.4 (a.k.a R2007a). It was also the last version to support Apple PowerPC hardware. Support for Apple’s Quicktime will be also phased out after this version, in favor of the much more modern, free and open-source cross-platform GStreamer multimedia framework, which will take over Quicktime’s duties. This was also the last version to support 32-Bit GNU/Octave on MS-Windows and OSX. Download link for 3.0.9 zip file
Psychtoolbox-3.0.8
A snapshot of the code as of April 2011: This was the final 3.0.8 release before start of the 3.0.9 series with its new “mostly MIT” license model.
Psychtoolbox-3.0.8-PreMatlab6.5
A snapshot of the code as of late 2010: This was the last release that worked with Matlab versions before V6.5.
Psychtoolbox-3.0.8-PreTiger
A snapshot of the code as of February 2009: This was the last release that is (assumed, not tested!) to work properly in most parts on Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4 “Tiger”, i.e., 10.3 “Panther” and earlier. It was also the last release with support for GNU Octave versions prior to 3.2.0 on Mac OS and Linux.
Psychtoolbox-3.0.7
A snapshot of the code as of October 2006: Added basic and limited support for movie playback on OSX via Quicktime, some performance enhancements to the drawing functions and a few bug fixes.