---
name: "envvars"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "libcoin80-doc"
version: "3.1.4~abc9f50-7"
release: "Debian 8 (Jessie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/envvars"
---

# envvars(3)

## NAME

Miscellaneous Environment Variables -

### Variables

EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_GLU\_INFO**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_GLU\_VERSION**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_FONTSUPPORT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_3DS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_AUDIO**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_BREAK**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_CACHING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_DL**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_IMPORT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_LISTMODULES**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SOINPUT\_FINDFILE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_WRITEREFS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_RANDOMIZE\_RENDER\_CACHING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FREETYPE2\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FORCE\_FREETYPE\_OFF**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FORCE\_WIN32FONTS\_OFF**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FONT\_PATH**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DISABLE\_UTF8**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GLBBOX**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GLU\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AGLGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SIMAGE\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GLXGLUE\_NO\_GLX13\_PBUFFERS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GLXGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_ZLIB\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_BZIP2\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_WGLGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DONT\_MANGLE\_OUTPUT\_NAMES**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_EXTSELECTION\_SAVE\_OFFSCREENBUFFER**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FORCE\_TILED\_OFFSCREENRENDERING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GLERROR\_DEBUGGING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_IDA\_DEBUG**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OFFSCREENRENDERER\_MAX\_TILESIZE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEHEIGHT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEWIDTH**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OLDSTYLE\_FORMATTING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SEPARATE\_DIFFUSE\_TRANSPARENCY\_OVERRIDE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOINPUT\_SEARCH\_GLOBAL\_DICT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEPREFIX**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SORTED\_LAYERS\_USE\_NVIDIA\_RC**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_BUFFER\_LENGTH**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_DISABLE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_DRIVER\_NAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_ENABLE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_INTRO\_PAUSE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_NUM\_BUFFERS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOUND\_THREAD\_SLEEP\_TIME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OPENAL\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_LINEAR\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_LINEAR\_MIPMAP\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_MIPMAP\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_SCALEUP\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_USE\_GLTEXSUBIMAGE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_MAXIMUM\_TEXTURE2\_SIZE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_MAXIMUM\_TEXTURE3\_SIZE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_USE\_GL\_VERTEX\_ARRAYS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_NORMALIZATION\_CUBEMAP\_SIZE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **OIV\_NUM\_SORTED\_LAYERS\_PASSES**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_MAX\_VBO\_MEMORY**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_NUM\_SORTED\_LAYERS\_PASSES**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_QUADMESH\_PRECISE\_LIGHTING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_ENABLE\_CONFORMANT\_GL\_CLAMP**\
 EnvironmentVariable **IV\_SEPARATOR\_MAX\_CACHES**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_LOCAL\_MAX**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_LOCAL\_MIN**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_REMOTE\_MAX**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_REMOTE\_MIN**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AUTO\_CACHING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_ENABLE\_VBO**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_VBO**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_VBO\_MAX\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_VBO\_MIN\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER\_ALLOW\_RESOURCEHOG**\
 EnvironmentVariable **SO\_DRAGGER\_DIR**\
 EnvironmentVariable **SO\_SHADER\_DIR**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COINDIR**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_ALLOW\_SPIDERMONKEY**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_VBO\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_CALCULATE\_NURBS\_NORMALS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_CGLGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_CG\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_ASSERT\_SOBASE\_SETNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_BINARY\_INPUT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_CLEANUP**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_EXTRA**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_FLATTEN\_NODEKITS\_ON\_WRITE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_GLRENDER\_TRAVERSAL**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_GLUNURBSSURFACE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_INTERSECTIONDETECTIONACTION**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_MUTEXLOCK\_MAXTIME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_MUTEXLOCK\_TIMING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_MUTEX\_COUNT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_NORMALIZE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_NPRINTF**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_NURBS\_COMPLEXITY**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_ROOT\_NOTIFICATIONS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SIMAGE**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SOEXTSELECTION**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SOFILE\_READ**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEPREFIX**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_SPIDERMONKEY\_BINDING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_STRING\_GROW**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_TRACK\_SOBASE\_INSTANCES**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_VBO**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_DEBUG\_VRMLSCRIPT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FONTCONFIG\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FORCE\_AGL**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_FORCE\_FONTCONFIG\_OFF**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GLU\_SILENCE\_TESS\_COMBINE\_WARNING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GL\_DISABLE\_VBO**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_GL\_NO\_CURRENT\_CONTEXT\_CHECK**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_HANDLE\_STACK\_OVERFLOW**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_NESTED\_CACHING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_NOT\_STRICT\_VRML97**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_NO\_NVIDIA\_COLOR\_PER\_FACE\_BUG\_WORKAROUND**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_NO\_SOTYPE\_DYNLOAD**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OFFSCREEN\_STENCIL\_BITS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_OLD\_NURBS\_COMPLEXITY**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_PREFER\_GLU\_TESSELLATOR**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_REDUCE\_LINEAR\_NURBS\_STEPS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SMART\_CACHING**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_SPIDERMONKEY\_LIBNAME**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_ANISOTROPIC\_LIMIT**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_TEX2\_USE\_SGIS\_GENERATE\_MIPMAP**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_VERTEX\_ARRAYS**\
 EnvironmentVariable **COIN\_VIEWUP**\
 EnvironmentVariable **WINDIR**\

## Detailed Description

Various aspects of the Coin runtime behaviour can be controlled through setting different environment variables to some value. Most of these variables are there for debugging and problem-workaround purposes, but a few are for telling Coin where to locate external resource files.

Here we will set up a list of some of the environment variables Coin will check for and can alter behavior because of. Scene Graph Profiler The scene graph profiler subsystem uses the following environment variables:

- •

  **COIN\_PROFILER**

- •

  **COIN\_PROFILER\_OVERLAY**

A lot of other environment variables will also affect the profiling and listing them all would be tedious. Most useful is perhaps the **IV\_SEPARATOR\_MAX\_CACHES** variable for disabling caching, and those that disable features like vertex arrays and frame buffer objects, but using thise will of course cause you to profile special cases that may not be as important as you might think.

## Variable Documentation

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_GLU\_INFO

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_GLU\_VERSION

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_FONTSUPPORT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_3DS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_AUDIO

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_BREAK

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_CACHING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_DL

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_IMPORT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_LISTMODULES

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SOINPUT\_FINDFILE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_WRITEREFS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_RANDOMIZE\_RENDER\_CACHING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FREETYPE2\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FORCE\_FREETYPE\_OFF

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FORCE\_WIN32FONTS\_OFF

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FONT\_PATH

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DISABLE\_UTF8

Coin from version 4.0 onwards expects all characters related to text rendering to be UTF-8 encoded.

This variable should be a set, if you need to reinstate the old behavior of treating all characters according to the Western Latin-1 encoding.

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GLBBOX

If the environment variable COIN\_GLBBOX is set to 1, rendering action traversals will apply a bbox action before rendering. This will make sure bounding box caches are updated (needed for view frustum culling). The default Quarter/SoQt/SoWin/SoXt viewers will handle this at their end (which is the proper way to do it), so we don't do this by default.

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GLU\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AGLGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SIMAGE\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GLXGLUE\_NO\_GLX13\_PBUFFERS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GLXGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_ZLIB\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_BZIP2\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_WGLGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DONT\_MANGLE\_OUTPUT\_NAMES

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_EXTSELECTION\_SAVE\_OFFSCREENBUFFER

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FORCE\_TILED\_OFFSCREENRENDERING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GLERROR\_DEBUGGING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_IDA\_DEBUG

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OFFSCREENRENDERER\_MAX\_TILESIZE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEHEIGHT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEWIDTH

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OLDSTYLE\_FORMATTING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SEPARATE\_DIFFUSE\_TRANSPARENCY\_OVERRIDE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOINPUT\_SEARCH\_GLOBAL\_DICT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEPREFIX

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SORTED\_LAYERS\_USE\_NVIDIA\_RC

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_BUFFER\_LENGTH

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_DISABLE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_DRIVER\_NAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_ENABLE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_INTRO\_PAUSE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_NUM\_BUFFERS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOUND\_THREAD\_SLEEP\_TIME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OPENAL\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_LINEAR\_LIMIT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_LINEAR\_MIPMAP\_LIMIT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_MIPMAP\_LIMIT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_SCALEUP\_LIMIT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_USE\_GLTEXSUBIMAGE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_MAXIMUM\_TEXTURE2\_SIZE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_MAXIMUM\_TEXTURE3\_SIZE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_USE\_GL\_VERTEX\_ARRAYS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_NORMALIZATION\_CUBEMAP\_SIZE

### EnvironmentVariable OIV\_NUM\_SORTED\_LAYERS\_PASSES

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_MAX\_VBO\_MEMORY

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_NUM\_SORTED\_LAYERS\_PASSES

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_QUADMESH\_PRECISE\_LIGHTING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_ENABLE\_CONFORMANT\_GL\_CLAMP

### EnvironmentVariable IV\_SEPARATOR\_MAX\_CACHES

Can be used to tune the number of display list caches stored in each **SoSeparator**. The default value is 2.

Setting this value to 0 will disable display list caching, and this is often useful if you experience weird rendering bugs which are hard to track down.

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_LOCAL\_MAX

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_LOCAL\_MIN

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_REMOTE\_MAX

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_REMOTE\_MIN

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AUTO\_CACHING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_ENABLE\_VBO

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_VBO

Set COIN\_VBO=0 to disable VBO rendering in Coin. This is useful if you suspect bugs in either Coin's VBO code or in the OpenGL driver VBO handling.

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_VBO\_MAX\_LIMIT

Can be used to set the maximum number of items (coordinates, normals, texcoords or colors) allowed when creating a vertex buffer object. On most drivers it's actually slower to render large arrays with VBOs than with normal vertex array rendering.

The default value is 256000, and when the number of items exceeds this Coin will fall back to normal vertex array or immediate mode rendering.

**See also:**

**COIN\_VBO\_MIN\_LIMIT**

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_VBO\_MIN\_LIMIT

Can be used to set the minimum number of items (coordinates, normals, texcoords or colors) allowed when creating a vertex buffer object. It's a bit of overhead setting up the VBOs and the VBO rendering, so we avoid doing this for very small arrays. The default value is 20.

**See also:**

**COIN\_VBO\_MAX\_LIMIT**

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER\_ALLOW\_RESOURCEHOG

### EnvironmentVariable SO\_DRAGGER\_DIR

### EnvironmentVariable SO\_SHADER\_DIR

### EnvironmentVariable COINDIR

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_ALLOW\_SPIDERMONKEY

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_AUTOCACHE\_VBO\_LIMIT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_CALCULATE\_NURBS\_NORMALS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_CGLGLUE\_NO\_PBUFFERS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_CG\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_ASSERT\_SOBASE\_SETNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_BINARY\_INPUT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_CLEANUP

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_EXTRA

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_FLATTEN\_NODEKITS\_ON\_WRITE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_GLRENDER\_TRAVERSAL

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_GLUNURBSSURFACE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_INTERSECTIONDETECTIONACTION

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_MUTEXLOCK\_MAXTIME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_MUTEXLOCK\_TIMING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_MUTEX\_COUNT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_NORMALIZE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_NPRINTF

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_NURBS\_COMPLEXITY

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_ROOT\_NOTIFICATIONS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SIMAGE

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SOEXTSELECTION

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SOFILE\_READ

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SOOFFSCREENRENDERER\_TILEPREFIX

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_SPIDERMONKEY\_BINDING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_STRING\_GROW

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_TRACK\_SOBASE\_INSTANCES

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_VBO

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_DEBUG\_VRMLSCRIPT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FONTCONFIG\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FORCE\_AGL

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_FORCE\_FONTCONFIG\_OFF

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GLU\_SILENCE\_TESS\_COMBINE\_WARNING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GL\_DISABLE\_VBO

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_GL\_NO\_CURRENT\_CONTEXT\_CHECK

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_HANDLE\_STACK\_OVERFLOW

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_NESTED\_CACHING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_NOT\_STRICT\_VRML97

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_NO\_NVIDIA\_COLOR\_PER\_FACE\_BUG\_WORKAROUND

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_NO\_SOTYPE\_DYNLOAD

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OFFSCREEN\_STENCIL\_BITS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_OLD\_NURBS\_COMPLEXITY

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_PREFER\_GLU\_TESSELLATOR

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_REDUCE\_LINEAR\_NURBS\_STEPS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SMART\_CACHING

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_SPIDERMONKEY\_LIBNAME

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_ANISOTROPIC\_LIMIT

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_TEX2\_USE\_SGIS\_GENERATE\_MIPMAP

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_VERTEX\_ARRAYS

### EnvironmentVariable COIN\_VIEWUP

### EnvironmentVariable WINDIR

%WINDIR%/Fonts is always searched for fonts on Windows.

## Author

Generated automatically by Doxygen for Coin from the source code.