Many of WireGL's features can be adjusted through environment variables. Below is the list of the environment variables and a description of their effect on the system. There are three catagories: general which applies to both the server and client application, server variables, and client variables. Note that client variables only need to be set on the client system, likewise for server variables. Also many features are enabled if the variable is defined, regardless of value. For example:

set WIREGL_DRAW_BBOX=blah

set WIREGL_DRAW_BBOX=

General environment variables:

WIREGL_GUI_ERROR
If defined, system errors are displayed with a Windows message box. Otherwise, errors are printed to stderr. Only used in Windows version.

WIREGL_WARN_LEVEL
This defines the system warning level. It can have 6 different values: VERBOSE_DEBUG, DEBUG, CHATTY, NOTICE, IMPORTANT, CRITICAL (default). By default, only critical messages are reported.

Server environment variables:

WIREGL_DISPLAY
Sets which display to open the rendering window. If not defined, the DISPLAY environment variable is used. If DISPLAY is not defined, the pipeserver will use the local display. Ignored with Windows version.

WIREGL_NO_TOP
By default, the pipeserver window is defined to be the top most window on the desktop. If WIREGL_NO_TOP is defined, the window can be placed behind other windows which is useful for debugging. Only used in Windows version.

Client environment variables:

WIREGL_LIB
The location of the WireGL opengl32.dll or libGL.so. This variable is referenced by the wgl executable for launching client applications. See Cluster Setup for its usage.

WIREGL_BUCKETSIZE
This sets the maximum number of vertexs and can be packed into the geometry buffer before flushing. Default: 2^31.

WIREGL_BROADCAST
If defined, geometry bucketing is disabled.

WIREGL_PACK_ONLY
If defined, WireGL disables all tracking of the OpenGL state tracking, including bucketing and tiling. Primarily for debugging purposes, all commands are simply packed into the network buffer and sent to all pipeservers. Similar to GLX style remote rendering.

WIREGL_DRAW_BBOX
If defined, WireGL inserts bounding box information into the network stream which is rendered by the pipeservers. Primarily for debugging, it allows the user to visualize the bucketing behavior of WireGL.

WIREGL_RESOLVE_ARRAYS
If defined, WireGL will resolve all vertex array calls on the client, sending glVertex*, glNormal*, glTexCoord*, etc. commands instead of glArrayElement, glDrawElements, or glDrawArrays commands. This command disables the vertex array client server cacheing code.

WIREGL_STATE_ERROR_GUI
By default, WireGL will perform OpenGL error checking as defined by the OpenGL specification. If this environment variable is defined, the WireGL state tracking will display a message box explaining the OpenGL error when it occurs. The user can then choose to debug the application, ignore the error, or perform the OpenGL specified behavior. Only valid in Windows version.

WIREGL_PATH
Determines the path to use to for locating the WireGL configuration file, wiregl.conf. By default, the current directory is used.

WIREGL_PIPE_BUFFER_SIZE
Sets the size (in bytes) of the network buffers to use. Increasing the buffer size can increase performance but requires more memory. Default is 256KB.