title: Toward an Experimental Timing Standards Lab: benchmarking precision in the real world
abstract: Much discussion has taken place over the relative merits of various platforms and operating systems for real-time data collection. Most would agree that, provided great care is taken, many are capable of millisecond timing precision. However, to date, much of this work has focused on the theoretical aspects of raw performance. It is our belief that researchers would be better informed if they could place confidence limits on their own specific paradigms in situ and without modification. To this end, we have developed a millisecond precision test rig that can control and time experiments on a second presentation machine. We report on the specialist hardware and software used. We elucidate the importance of the approach in relation to real-world experimentation
keyphrases: Experimental Timing Standards Lab benchmarking precision operating systems real-time data collection millisecond timing precision performance evaluation Event Generation software