Hardware or Software Startup

HOOPS Luminate has three different rendering modes:

  • 0: Hardware only mode. This rendering mode only uses the GPU for the display. It’s suitable for any real-time only application.

  • 1: Hybrid mode: The engine can use hardware rendering or software rendering at will. It’s mostly used for applications that do both data setup and high quality renderings.

  • 2: Software mode: The engine only renders in software. It’s used mostly for rendering applications.

// Create our resource manager:
RED::Object* resmgr = RED::Factory::CreateInstance( CID_REDResourceManager );
// Access its main interface:
RED::IResourceManager* iresmgr = resmgr->As< RED::IResourceManager >();
// Access its option interface:
RED::IOptions* iresopt = resmgr->As< RED::IOptions >();

// 0: hardware; 1: hybrid; 2: full software. Here, for instance, let's start in hybrid mode:
RC_TEST( iresopt->SetOptionValue( RED::OPTIONS_RAY_ENABLE_SOFT_TRACER, 1, iresmgr->GetState() ) );

The hardware mode will use the video memory (and the RAM used by the video card driver) to store application graphic data. The hybrid mode will use both the video memory and the RAM to store application graphic data. Textures are stored in the CPU RAM and in the video memory. The software mode will use the RAM to store application graphic data.