vsx(1) manual page Table of Contents

vsx(1)

Name

vsx - use OpenGL Vizserver transparent interface for an

application

Synopsis

vsx -h | -help
vsx -version
vsx [-verbose] [--] app-name [app-args]

Description

The vsx command applies the OpenGL Vizserver transparent interface to the specified app-name The displayed results of the application will appear on the client system of the user's session.

The vsx command is meaningless when the OpenGL Vizserver session is in desktop-sharing mode.

The vsx command has the following options:


-help
Print the options available for the vsx command and exit.
-h
Same as -help.
-version
Print the version of the vsx Library and exit.
-verbose
Prints extra information.
--
Ends command-line options parsing.
app-name
Application to run using vsx.
app-args
Arguments used by the specific application.


Limitations

The transparent interface uses the _RLD_LIST feature of rld(5) (on IRIX) and the LD_PRELOAD feature of ld.so(8) (on Linux IA64) to override OpenGL and X functions in the original libraries. For security reasons, both run time linkers ignore the corresponding environment variable when running setuid root programs, so this kind of programs can not run under vsx.

Shared Memory

OpenGL Vizserver session uses a shared memory with keys 0x12340000 to 0x1234FFFF and if it is deleted out from under the session, the session and applications will no longer be able to communicate. It is required to avoid deleting the shared memory with these keys while running an OpenGL Vizserver session.

On IRIX, certain applications, when running under an OpenGL Vizserver session, might require more shared memory than is available in the system. Increasing the values of the resident set size of a process, such as rlimit_rss_cur and rlimit_rss_max, might solve the problem. Note that increasing these values beyond the system's physical memory size can cause excessive paging/swapping. Please refer to systune(1M) man page about how to change the values of these parameters.

Vs_disallow_xgrabserver

XGrabServer(3X11) locks the X server completely for an application process and no other applications can then communicate with the X server. Since OpenGL Vizserver needs to communicate with the X server often, this causes the applications to deadlock the OpenGL Vizserver session. The environment variable VS_DISALLOW_XGRABSERVER can be used in the OpenGL Vizserver console window before launching applications which use XGrabServer often to prevent this problem. After setting the environment variable, calls to XGrabServer will be disregarded and the deadlock will not occur.

SGC-DVI-IN and __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK

When the server machine is a Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision or Silicon Graphics Prism system, the default behavior of double-buffered OpenGL applications is to swap the front and back buffers asynchronously with the monitor's refresh cycle (the "vblank" time). When used with the SGC-DVI-IN hardware readback device (which is synchronous with the monitor's refresh cycle), this can cause OpenGL Vizserver to send to the client images which have artifacts. Especially when used with relatively light (slow) clients, these artifacts can become quite annoying. In order to override this default OpenGL behavior, it is recommended to set the environment variable __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK in the console before running an application to be served by OpenGL Vizserver.

Vs_no_stereo_readback

Enabling VS_NO_STEREO_READBACK environment variable on the OpenGL Vizserver console causes any applications that are launched to disable stereo readback. No client will then receive stereo updates from this application even if the client platform supports stereo. This is useful for non incurring any performance penality for stereo readback per application basis.

GLX_SGI_vizserver and GLX_SGI_vizserver_collab

OpenGL Vizserver provides the GLX_SGI_vizserver string as one of the supported GLX extensions. The served application can use the string in glxQueryExtensionsString(3G) to detect that the application is running under OpenGL Vizserver. The string can be shown by the glxinfo(1G) command in the OpenGL Vizserver Console window.
Similarly, the GLX_SGI_vizserver_collab string is provided as one of the supported GLX extensions if the application is served under a collaborative OpenGL Vizserver session.

See Also

vizserver(1) , rld(5) , systune(1M) , ld.so(8)

OpenGL Vizserver User's Guide

OpenGL Vizserver Administrator's Guide


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