Hello
Beta has been updated. This one is a huge update, owing
to the long time span of 8 weeks since the last update.
Way too much stuff to mention in detail. Only a few highlights, because
i have bad long term memory and don't remember each detail.
If you want to know each detail, read the weblog at
<http://svn.berlios.de/wsvn/osxptb>, all entries
for revisions 884 up to 923 and you'll be up to date,
or asleep, or confused.
Special thanks to Roger Woods (UCLA) for contributing substantial
new code to PsychHID on OS/X, and to Luis Ariel Diago, Reinhard Gretzki,
Ariel Rokem, Dave Freeman, Eric Flister, Quoc Vuong, Max di Luca,
Katja Mayer, Karin Pilz and Kerstin Preuschoff for reporting bugs,
contributing small bits of code, or for testing new features. And of
course to the half a dozen people i probably forgot when writing this.
Highlights for Windows users:
* Internal timing routines for Windows improved to detect broken
windows timers and to work-around broken timers as much as
possible. New script GetSecsTest.m added for more exhaustive
testing.
==> I strongly advise all users of the worlds most deficient
operating system to run the GetSecsTest script once on each
of his experimental setup computers, to read its help text and
to carefully read this page...
<http://psychtoolbox.org/wikka.php?wakka=FaqGetSecsTestFails>
... in the FAQ section of our Wiki. And always remember: "Don't panic!"
In our own limited test set of machines we couldn't find any affected
systems, so feedback would be interesting for us to update the
list of potentially broken systems.
* A new text renderer for MS-Windows, based on GDI text rendering.
Allows for high-quality anti-aliased text drawing, supports nearly
all features of the OS/X renderer, allows for Unicode text drawing.
Demonstrated in DrawHighQualityUnicodeTextDemo.m
* PsychPortAudio allows to select channels and channel mapping
on multi-channel soundcards with ASIO support,
e.g., only select 2 specific subchannels out of 16 channels...
Highlights for MacOS/X users:
* Support for asynchronous checking of key presses on OS/X via use of
a keyboard queue. Especially useful in combination with the fORP and
other response boxes which sometimes provide key signalling too short
for normal KbCheck to pick it up -- Functionality contributed by
Roger Woods UCLA. See PsychDocumentation/KbQueue.html and
KbQueueDemo.m
* GamePad function for gamepad / joystick queries on OS/X: Optimized,
now about 50 times faster on average.
* pnet command for OS/X PowerPC rebuilt to hopefully fix trouble
reported
by Kerstin Preuschoff.
* More workarounds for driver bugs on Geforce8600 in new MacbookPro.
General improvements for all operating systems:
* Display refresh calibration and timestamping improved: Added work-
arounds for more broken gfx-drivers...
==> I found a new class of driver bugs that can affect refresh
calibration
and timestamping checks and implemented workarounds to take this
into account, so the calibration routine and timing checks should be
more robust.
==> People who experienced frequent "synchronization failure" problems
should upgrade and retest.
* More diagnostic help text output for common error cases, like e.g.,
forgetting to enable beampos timestamping on Windoze multi-display
setups, forgetting to properly close movies and textures, ...
* Screen('DrawTexture(s)') procedural shader support improved:
Now we have a full blown shading API for passing of many useful
parameters via vertex attributes.
Documented in 'help ProceduralShadingAPI', demonstrated with
a Gaborpatch-Shader in ProceduralGaborDemo.m. We also have a
procedural sine grating shader, but no demo yet.
==> Test this if you feel the need to draw many gabor patches
quickly.
* 'DrawTexture' now allows texture rotation via texture matrix as well,
see help kPsychUseTextureMatrixForRotation.
* More internal debug output at high 'Verbosity' levels.
* Many bugfixes: Off-by-one bugs in Screen('CopyWindow') for full-
window copies fixed. Fixes to Screen('GetFlipInterval').
Fixes to imaging pipeline.
* PsychPortAudio allows for low-latency stop of sound output, more
flexible sound retrieval in sound capture mode, fixes for unusual
sound hardware, more error checking, support for flying-starts and
for channel selection on MS-Windows ASIO multi-channel soundcards.
* Support for new stereo color anaglyph modes in SetAnaglyphParameters()
and a stereo movie player demo ImagingStereoMoviePlayer.m
* Downloader improved for higher robustness + bugfixes.
* Many other small improvements and bug fixes.
* Documentation and help text updates.
Much more included, but i can't remember. If you had any issues or
bugs in the last couple of weeks, just update and retest.
Enjoy,
-mario
Beta has been updated. This one is a huge update, owing
to the long time span of 8 weeks since the last update.
Way too much stuff to mention in detail. Only a few highlights, because
i have bad long term memory and don't remember each detail.
If you want to know each detail, read the weblog at
<http://svn.berlios.de/wsvn/osxptb>, all entries
for revisions 884 up to 923 and you'll be up to date,
or asleep, or confused.
Special thanks to Roger Woods (UCLA) for contributing substantial
new code to PsychHID on OS/X, and to Luis Ariel Diago, Reinhard Gretzki,
Ariel Rokem, Dave Freeman, Eric Flister, Quoc Vuong, Max di Luca,
Katja Mayer, Karin Pilz and Kerstin Preuschoff for reporting bugs,
contributing small bits of code, or for testing new features. And of
course to the half a dozen people i probably forgot when writing this.
Highlights for Windows users:
* Internal timing routines for Windows improved to detect broken
windows timers and to work-around broken timers as much as
possible. New script GetSecsTest.m added for more exhaustive
testing.
==> I strongly advise all users of the worlds most deficient
operating system to run the GetSecsTest script once on each
of his experimental setup computers, to read its help text and
to carefully read this page...
<http://psychtoolbox.org/wikka.php?wakka=FaqGetSecsTestFails>
... in the FAQ section of our Wiki. And always remember: "Don't panic!"
In our own limited test set of machines we couldn't find any affected
systems, so feedback would be interesting for us to update the
list of potentially broken systems.
* A new text renderer for MS-Windows, based on GDI text rendering.
Allows for high-quality anti-aliased text drawing, supports nearly
all features of the OS/X renderer, allows for Unicode text drawing.
Demonstrated in DrawHighQualityUnicodeTextDemo.m
* PsychPortAudio allows to select channels and channel mapping
on multi-channel soundcards with ASIO support,
e.g., only select 2 specific subchannels out of 16 channels...
Highlights for MacOS/X users:
* Support for asynchronous checking of key presses on OS/X via use of
a keyboard queue. Especially useful in combination with the fORP and
other response boxes which sometimes provide key signalling too short
for normal KbCheck to pick it up -- Functionality contributed by
Roger Woods UCLA. See PsychDocumentation/KbQueue.html and
KbQueueDemo.m
* GamePad function for gamepad / joystick queries on OS/X: Optimized,
now about 50 times faster on average.
* pnet command for OS/X PowerPC rebuilt to hopefully fix trouble
reported
by Kerstin Preuschoff.
* More workarounds for driver bugs on Geforce8600 in new MacbookPro.
General improvements for all operating systems:
* Display refresh calibration and timestamping improved: Added work-
arounds for more broken gfx-drivers...
==> I found a new class of driver bugs that can affect refresh
calibration
and timestamping checks and implemented workarounds to take this
into account, so the calibration routine and timing checks should be
more robust.
==> People who experienced frequent "synchronization failure" problems
should upgrade and retest.
* More diagnostic help text output for common error cases, like e.g.,
forgetting to enable beampos timestamping on Windoze multi-display
setups, forgetting to properly close movies and textures, ...
* Screen('DrawTexture(s)') procedural shader support improved:
Now we have a full blown shading API for passing of many useful
parameters via vertex attributes.
Documented in 'help ProceduralShadingAPI', demonstrated with
a Gaborpatch-Shader in ProceduralGaborDemo.m. We also have a
procedural sine grating shader, but no demo yet.
==> Test this if you feel the need to draw many gabor patches
quickly.
* 'DrawTexture' now allows texture rotation via texture matrix as well,
see help kPsychUseTextureMatrixForRotation.
* More internal debug output at high 'Verbosity' levels.
* Many bugfixes: Off-by-one bugs in Screen('CopyWindow') for full-
window copies fixed. Fixes to Screen('GetFlipInterval').
Fixes to imaging pipeline.
* PsychPortAudio allows for low-latency stop of sound output, more
flexible sound retrieval in sound capture mode, fixes for unusual
sound hardware, more error checking, support for flying-starts and
for channel selection on MS-Windows ASIO multi-channel soundcards.
* Support for new stereo color anaglyph modes in SetAnaglyphParameters()
and a stereo movie player demo ImagingStereoMoviePlayer.m
* Downloader improved for higher robustness + bugfixes.
* Many other small improvements and bug fixes.
* Documentation and help text updates.
Much more included, but i can't remember. If you had any issues or
bugs in the last couple of weeks, just update and retest.
Enjoy,
-mario