Environment Variables

Normally, no environment variables need to be set. Most of the environment variables used by Mesa/Gallium are for debugging purposes, but they can sometimes be useful for debugging end-user issues.

LibGL environment variables

• LIBGL_DEBUG - If defined debug information will be printed to stderr. If set to 'verbose' additional information will be printed.
• LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH - colon-separated list of paths to search for DRI drivers
• LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT - forces an indirect rendering context/connection.
• LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE - if set, always use software rendering
• LIBGL_NO_DRAWARRAYS - if set do not use DrawArrays GLX protocol (for debugging)
• LIBGL_SHOW_FPS - print framerate to stdout based on the number of glXSwapBuffers calls per second.

Core Mesa environment variables

• MESA_NO_ASM - if set, disables all assembly language optimizations
• MESA_NO_MMX - if set, disables Intel MMX optimizations
• MESA_NO_3DNOW - if set, disables AMD 3DNow! optimizations
• MESA_NO_SSE - if set, disables Intel SSE optimizations
• MESA_DEBUG - if set, error messages are printed to stderr. For example, if the application generates a GL_INVALID_ENUM error, a corresponding error message indicating where the error occurred, and possibly why, will be printed to stderr.
  If the value of MESA_DEBUG is 'FP' floating point arithmetic errors will generate exceptions.
• MESA_LOG_FILE - specifies a file name for logging all errors, warnings, etc., rather than stderr
• MESA_TEX_PROG - if set, implement conventional texture env modes with fragment programs (intended for developers only)
• MESA_TNL_PROG - if set, implement conventional vertex transformation operations with vertex programs (intended for developers only). Setting this variable automatically sets the MESA_TEX_PROG variable as well.
• MESA_EXTENSION_OVERRIDE - can be used to enable/disable extensions. A value such as "GL_EXT_foo -GL_EXT_bar" will enable the GL_EXT_foo extension and disable the GL_EXT_bar extension.
• MESA_EXTENSION_MAX_YEAR - The GL_EXTENSIONS string returned by Mesa is sorted by extension year. If this variable is set to year X, only extensions defined on or before year X will be reported. This is to work-around a bug in some games where the extension string is copied into a fixed-size buffer without truncating. If the extension string is too long, the buffer overrun can cause the game to crash. This is a work-around for that.
• MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE - changes the value returned by glGetString(GL_VERSION) and possibly the GL API type.
  • The format should be MAJOR.MINOR[FC]
  • FC is an optional suffix that indicates a forward compatible context. This is only valid for versions >= 3.0.
  • GL versions < 3.0 are set to a compatibility (non-Core) profile
  • GL versions = 3.0, see below
  • GL versions > 3.0 are set to a Core profile
  • Examples: 2.1, 3.0, 3.0FC, 3.1, 3.1FC
    • 2.1 - select a compatibility (non-Core) profile with GL version 2.1
    • 3.0 - select a compatibility (non-Core) profile with GL version 3.0
    • 3.0FC - select a Core+Forward Compatible profile with GL version 3.0
    • 3.1 - select a Core profile with GL version 3.1
    • 3.1FC - select a Core+Forward Compatible profile with GL version 3.1
  • Mesa may not really implement all the features of the given version. (for developers only)
• MESA_GLSL_VERSION_OVERRIDE - changes the value returned by glGetString(GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION). Valid values are integers, such as "130". Mesa will not really implement all the features of the given language version if it's higher than what's normally reported. (for developers only)
• MESA_GLSL - shading language compiler options

Mesa Xlib driver environment variables

The following are only applicable to the Mesa Xlib software driver. See the Xlib software driver page for details.

• MESA_RGB_VISUAL - specifies the X visual and depth for RGB mode
• MESA_CI_VISUAL - specifies the X visual and depth for CI mode
• MESA_BACK_BUFFER - specifies how to implement the back color buffer, either "pixmap" or "ximage"
• MESA_GAMMA - gamma correction coefficients for red, green, blue channels
• MESA_XSYNC - enable synchronous X behavior (for debugging only)
• MESA_GLX_FORCE_CI - if set, force GLX to treat 8bpp visuals as CI visuals
• MESA_GLX_FORCE_ALPHA - if set, forces RGB windows to have an alpha channel.
• MESA_GLX_DEPTH_BITS - specifies default number of bits for depth buffer.
• MESA_GLX_ALPHA_BITS - specifies default number of bits for alpha channel.

i945/i965 driver environment variables (non-Gallium)

• INTEL_NO_HW - if set to 1, prevents batches from being submitted to the hardware. This is useful for debugging hangs, etc.
• INTEL_DEBUG - a comma-separated list of named flags, which do various things:
  • tex - emit messages about textures.
  • state - emit messages about state flag tracking
  • blit - emit messages about blit operations
  • miptree - emit messages about miptrees
  • perf - emit messages about performance issues
  • perfmon - emit messages about AMD_performance_monitor
  • bat - emit batch information
  • pix - emit messages about pixel operations
  • buf - emit messages about buffer objects
  • reg - emit messages about regions
  • fbo - emit messages about framebuffers
  • fs - dump shader assembly for fragment shaders
  • gs - dump shader assembly for geometry shaders
  • sync - emit messages about synchronization
  • prim - emit messages about drawing primitives
  • vert - emit messages about vertex assembly
  • dri - emit messages about the DRI interface
  • sf - emit messages about the strips & fans unit (for old gens, includes the SF program)
  • stats - enable statistics counters. you probably actually want perfmon or intel_gpu_top instead.
  • urb - emit messages about URB setup
  • vs - dump shader assembly for vertex shaders
  • clip - emit messages about the clip unit (for old gens, includes the CLIP program)
  • aub - dump batches into an AUB trace for use with simulation tools
  • shader_time - record how much GPU time is spent in each shader
  • no16 - suppress generation of 16-wide fragment shaders. useful for debugging broken shaders
  • blorp - emit messages about the blorp operations (blits & clears)
  • nodualobj - suppress generation of dual-object geometry shader code

Radeon driver environment variables (radeon, r200, and r300g)

• RADEON_NO_TCL - if set, disable hardware-accelerated Transform/Clip/Lighting.

EGL environment variables

Mesa EGL supports different sets of environment variables. See the Mesa EGL page for the details.

Gallium environment variables

• GALLIUM_HUD - draws various information on the screen, like framerate, cpu load, driver statistics, performance counters, etc. Set GALLIUM_HUD=help and run e.g. glxgears for more info.
• GALLIUM_LOG_FILE - specifies a file for logging all errors, warnings, etc. rather than stderr.
• GALLIUM_PRINT_OPTIONS - if non-zero, print all the Gallium environment variables which are used, and their current values.
• GALLIUM_DUMP_CPU - if non-zero, print information about the CPU on start-up
• TGSI_PRINT_SANITY - if set, do extra sanity checking on TGSI shaders and print any errors to stderr.
• DRAW_FSE - ???
• DRAW_NO_FSE - ???
• DRAW_USE_LLVM - if set to zero, the draw module will not use LLVM to execute shaders, vertex fetch, etc.
• ST_DEBUG - controls debug output from the Mesa/Gallium state tracker. Setting to "tgsi", for example, will print all the TGSI shaders. See src/mesa/state_tracker/st_debug.c for other options.

Softpipe driver environment variables

• SOFTPIPE_DUMP_FS - if set, the softpipe driver will print fragment shaders to stderr
• SOFTPIPE_DUMP_GS - if set, the softpipe driver will print geometry shaders to stderr
• SOFTPIPE_NO_RAST - if set, rasterization is no-op'd. For profiling purposes.
• SOFTPIPE_USE_LLVM - if set, the softpipe driver will try to use LLVM JIT for vertex shading processing.

LLVMpipe driver environment variables

• LP_NO_RAST - if set LLVMpipe will no-op rasterization
• LP_DEBUG - a comma-separated list of debug options is accepted. See the source code for details.
• LP_PERF - a comma-separated list of options to selectively no-op various parts of the driver. See the source code for details.
• LP_NUM_THREADS - an integer indicating how many threads to use for rendering. Zero turns of threading completely. The default value is the number of CPU cores present.

VMware SVGA driver environment variables

• SVGA_FORCE_SWTNL - force use of software vertex transformation
• SVGA_NO_SWTNL - don't allow software vertex transformation fallbacks (will often result in incorrect rendering).
• SVGA_DEBUG - for dumping shaders, constant buffers, etc. See the code for details.
• See the driver code for other, lesser-used variables.

Other Gallium drivers have their own environment variables. These may change frequently so the source code should be consulted for details.