OpenGL Applications

You can run ​OpenGL applications in an xpra session in a number of ways:

• by running the xpra session directly on a "real" X11 server using an accelerated display driver - this is hard to setup and undocumented: you need to use the xvfb switch to start an accelerated X11 server (modified xorg.conf)
• by shadowing an existing accelerated X11 server (sub-optimal)
• by using ​VirtualGL

This is not related at all to the OpenGL client rendering: you can connect with any client you want, accelerated or not.

VirtualGL setup

Usually, you can just vglrun your application and things will "just work". That is the case for simple application like glxgears / glxspheres.

Other applications may require more complicated workarounds, see the extensive ​VirtualGL documentation for details, in particular ​12: Using VirtualGL with setuid/setgid Executables.

Caveat: for some unknown reason, you may need to use /etc/ld.so.preload instead of LD_PRELOAD to make some suid applications work through xpra. (#898) Temporary solution:

$ mv /etc/ld.so.preload /etc/ld.so.preload.saved >& null
$ echo "/usr/lib64/VirtualGL/libdlfaker.so /usr/lib64/VirtualGL/libgefaker.so /usr/lib64/VirtualGL/librrfaker.so" > /etc/ld.so.preload
$ vglrun yourapp
$ rm /etc/ld.so.preload
$ mv /etc/ld.so.preload.saved /etc/ld.so.preload >& null

If you application is suid, you may also need to chmod it.

OpenGL Performance

Some performance measurements can be found here: wiki/Usage/OpenGL/Performance.