<p>Speaking for the PsychoPy team, I would expect it to be possible but performance won't be great.</p>

<p>Both PsychoPy and OpenSesame use Python under the hood and this is an interpreted language. That means it isn't super-fast to execute code but we can get away with that by having fast computers (and hardware-accelerated graphics makes a huge difference).</p>

<p>Another option to consider might be a barebones PC like the Intel NUC computers. You can get one of those for £100 (but you have to add memory and hard disk so maybe £180 all in?). It still won't be as fast as a high-spec computer but should outperform a Raspberry Pi</p>

<p>Jon (for full disclosure, I'm the creator of PsychoPy)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-01-11T06:45:41.130Z
Thank you Jon! I am hoping to play with this sometime this year.
Mabu
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-12-02T10:37:36.977Z
2015-12-02T10:37:36.977Z
Jon
<p>Psychtoolbox-3 maintainer here.</p>

<p>I will probably buy one for some christmas entertainment and see how it does wrt. Psychtoolbox. In the past, with Broadcoms proprietary drivers, i wouldn't have trusted it for a second to provide trustworthy visual timing etc. Also their proprietary drivers only support OpneGL-ES afaik, and that is quite limiting.</p>

<p>However, Eric Anholt, a top open-source graphics driver developer, was hired by Broadcom a year ago to develop a fully open-source graphics stack for RPi / the VideoCore-4 QPI graphics processor, and that stuff is shaping up nicely lately. I was a bit involved in bringup of XOrg support for the xf86-video-modesetting driver of the just recently released XServer 1.18. As Rpi's open source graphics stack uses that driver, i think the user-space support for RPi looks quite decent now. I also did a quick code review of the improvements to the RPi kms display driver in the Linux kernel, and they look as if they might work well enough for somewhat trustworthy display timing. Those stuff is scheduled for Linux 4.5, and maybe would get backported by the RPi foundation to their distribution kernel.</p>

<p>The nice thing about the FOSS driver would be not only increased trustworthyness, but also regular desktop OpenGL support, which would make things easier for PTB and probably also PsychoPy etc.</p>

<p>Of course you won't get the graphics performance or possibly stimulus precision out of a RPi that you'd get from a standard Intel graphics chip, like in a NUC.</p>

<p>So basically i'm cautiously optimistic that the RPi might become at least somewhat useable for at least some not too demanding use cases within the next couple of months or maybe sometimes 2016. But i haven't tried one yet and things always tend to take much longer than one expects and the devil is always in the details, so consider this just a slightly informed opinion, based on some initial code review and skimming of available information.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-01-11T06:48:04.733Z
Thank you Mario. I have been using PTB for a long time now across different platforms, so it will be interesting to see if these can be used for research.
Mabu
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-12-15T16:44:54.127Z
2015-12-15T17:40:32.973Z
2015-12-15T17:40:32.973Z
Mario Kleiner
<p>We are considering setting up a few testing computers using Raspberry Pi 2. There was an interest in this a few years ago, but due to limitations of OpenGL in Raspberry Pi it did not go far. I was wondering if anybody made progress with possibility of running PTB, or PsychoPy, or other experimental software.</p>

<p>Old reference links:
<a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/3099/is-the-raspberry-pi-capable-of-operating-as-a-stimulus-presentation-system-for-e">Is the Raspberry Pi capable of operating as a stimulus presentation system for experiments?</a></p>

<p><a href="http://akiraoconnor.org/2013/02/01/using-the-raspberry-pi-to-run-cognitive-psychology-experiments/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://akiraoconnor.org/2013/02/01/using-the-raspberry-pi-to-run-cognitive-psychology-experiments/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-10-03T11:48:23.597Z
Your best chance at getting a speedy response is to ask [Psychopy](http://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/psychopy-users) or OpenSesame developers directly. What really puzzles me is why would anyone want to run experiments on raspberry pi. You can get a second-hand PC that supports OpenGL 2+ (and hence psychopy) for the same price and you get much better performance.
matus
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-10-03T21:23:07.550Z
Short answer: it's definitely possible (and I think it might have been discussed on www.cogsci.nl), but you almost certainly went be able to get highly accurate response times, or complex animation.
Eoin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-10-03T22:03:04.770Z
Aha! http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/getting-opensesame/raspberry-pi/ , and http://www.cogsci.nl/blog/miscellaneous/216-running-psychological-experiments-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-opensesame . But as @matus has said, are you sure you really want to do this?
Eoin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-10-20T15:00:41.493Z
It would be nice to have a standardized minimal computer system that can be used solely for running experiments. While second hand computers are cheap, you have to deal with slightly different hardware and drivers.
Mabu
<cognitive-psychology><cognitive-neuroscience><experimental-psychology>
Is it possible to run Psychtoolbox or PsychoPy on Raspberry Pi 2 for simple perceptual experiments?
Mabu
# Is it possible to run Psychtoolbox or PsychoPy on Raspberry Pi 2 for simple perceptual experiments?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-10-02)

We are considering setting up a few testing computers using Raspberry Pi 2. There was an interest in this a few years ago, but due to limitations of OpenGL in Raspberry Pi it did not go far. I was wondering if anybody made progress with possibility of running PTB, or PsychoPy, or other experimental software.

Old reference links:
[Is the Raspberry Pi capable of operating as a stimulus presentation system for experiments?](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/3099/is-the-raspberry-pi-capable-of-operating-as-a-stimulus-presentation-system-for-e)

<http://akiraoconnor.org/2013/02/01/using-the-raspberry-pi-to-run-cognitive-psychology-experiments/>

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, experimental-psychology

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Your best chance at getting a speedy response is to ask [Psychopy](http://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/psychopy-users) or OpenSesame developers directly. What really puzzles me is why would anyone want to run experiments on raspberry pi. You can get a second-hand PC that supports OpenGL 2+ (and hence psychopy) for the same price and you get much better performance.  
> **username_2**: Short answer: it's definitely possible (and I think it might have been discussed on www.cogsci.nl), but you almost certainly went be able to get highly accurate response times, or complex animation.  
> **username_2**: Aha! http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/getting-opensesame/raspberry-pi/ , and http://www.cogsci.nl/blog/miscellaneous/216-running-psychological-experiments-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-opensesame . But as @username_1 has said, are you sure you really want to do this?  
> **username_0**: It would be nice to have a standardized minimal computer system that can be used solely for running experiments. While second hand computers are cheap, you have to deal with slightly different hardware and drivers.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2015-12-02. Score: 4

Speaking for the PsychoPy team, I would expect it to be possible but performance won't be great.

Both PsychoPy and OpenSesame use Python under the hood and this is an interpreted language. That means it isn't super-fast to execute code but we can get away with that by having fast computers (and hardware-accelerated graphics makes a huge difference).

Another option to consider might be a barebones PC like the Intel NUC computers. You can get one of those for £100 (but you have to add memory and hard disk so maybe £180 all in?). It still won't be as fast as a high-spec computer but should outperform a Raspberry Pi

username_3 (for full disclosure, I'm the creator of PsychoPy)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you username_3! I am hoping to play with this sometime this year.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2015-12-15. Score: 1

Psychtoolbox-3 maintainer here.

I will probably buy one for some christmas entertainment and see how it does wrt. Psychtoolbox. In the past, with Broadcoms proprietary drivers, i wouldn't have trusted it for a second to provide trustworthy visual timing etc. Also their proprietary drivers only support OpneGL-ES afaik, and that is quite limiting.

However, Eric Anholt, a top open-source graphics driver developer, was hired by Broadcom a year ago to develop a fully open-source graphics stack for RPi / the VideoCore-4 QPI graphics processor, and that stuff is shaping up nicely lately. I was a bit involved in bringup of XOrg support for the xf86-video-modesetting driver of the just recently released XServer 1.18. As Rpi's open source graphics stack uses that driver, i think the user-space support for RPi looks quite decent now. I also did a quick code review of the improvements to the RPi kms display driver in the Linux kernel, and they look as if they might work well enough for somewhat trustworthy display timing. Those stuff is scheduled for Linux 4.5, and maybe would get backported by the RPi foundation to their distribution kernel.

The nice thing about the FOSS driver would be not only increased trustworthyness, but also regular desktop OpenGL support, which would make things easier for PTB and probably also PsychoPy etc.

Of course you won't get the graphics performance or possibly stimulus precision out of a RPi that you'd get from a standard Intel graphics chip, like in a NUC.

So basically i'm cautiously optimistic that the RPi might become at least somewhat useable for at least some not too demanding use cases within the next couple of months or maybe sometimes 2016. But i haven't tried one yet and things always tend to take much longer than one expects and the devil is always in the details, so consider this just a slightly informed opinion, based on some initial code review and skimming of available information.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you Mario. I have been using PTB for a long time now across different platforms, so it will be interesting to see if these can be used for research.  

---

