The minimum requirements for PsychoPy are a graphics card that supports OpenGL (most graphics cards do, but on windows you often need to install new drivers).
Ideally OpenGL 2.0 should be supported - certain functions run much faster with where it is available and one stimulus (e.g. ElementArrayStim) even requires it. At the time this was last updated dabs.co.uk were selling the nVidia GeForce 9500GT for £45, which would be an excellent card for most experiments.
The package is written almost entirely in Python using platform independent libraries (see list below). Since these are all available on all popular platforms PsychoPy will run anywhere and is limited only by your graphics card (make sure you have a decent 3D-accelerated card).
Like many python modules PsychoPy is built and dependent on a number of other libraries (OpenGL, numpy...). Details on how to install those are below.
If you haven't installed PsychoPy before you need to fetch Python and some dependencies first. If you fetch the Enthought Python Distribution, it contains everything you need (I think).
Then download and install the most recent version of PsychoPy itself. Once installed, you'll now find a link to PsychoPy IDE in >Start>Progams>PsychoPy. Click that and go to the help menu to see some demos working.
You should make sure you have reasonably current drivers for your graphics card (download the latest from the vendor, rather than using the pre-installed windows drivers).
You might also want to add C:/Python25 to your Windows path. To do that, right-click "My Computer" and select properties. Select the "Advaced" tab and the "Environment Variables" button. Now, in the System Variables window, double-click "path" and add the text C:/Python25/; C:/Python25/scripts; (somewhere in the line).
There are different ways to install PsychoPy on a mac that will suit different users
@@sudo port install py25-psychopy
(thanks James Kyles for that).
The easiest way to install all the dependencies is to use the Enthought Python Distribution. It's free (for academic use) and the only things it misses are avbin (if you want to play movies) and pygame (for improved sound reproduction). You could alternatively use the normal 'framework build' and download all the dependencies below.
If you take this method you can update to the latest version by opening a terminal and typing:
sudo /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.5 -N -Z -U psychopy
For (k)ubuntu users the installation is very straightforward:
1) install (most of) the dependencies with
sudo apt-get install python-scipy python-matplotlib python-imaging python-setuptools
sudo apt-get install python-opengl python-wxgtk2.8 python-pygame # (note: installing pygame is optional)
2) install PsychoPy and pyglet following 2a if you have the current versions (Jaunty and PsychoPy 1.00.03) or try 2b if you have previous versions
2a) download the source zip file from the google code website, unzip it in /tmp, enter the folder, and then
sudo easy_install -Z -U pyglet
python setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/PsychoPyEgg
sudo easy_install -Z /tmp/PsychoPyEgg/PsychoPy-*.egg
2b) run
sudo easy_install-2.5 --prefix /usr/local -N -Z -U pyglet psychopy
If you want to install each library individually rather than use the simple distributions of packages above then you can download the following. Make sure you get the correct version for your OS and your version of Python.
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