POV-Ray : Documentation : 5.3.3.2 SVGAlib display
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5.3.3.1 X Window display   5.3.3.3 Output file formats

5.3.3.2 SVGAlib display

For GNU/Linux systems that don't have the X Window System installed, or for those Linux users who prefer to run on the console, it is possible to use the SVGA library to display directly to the screen. For SVGAlib display, the povray binary must be installed as a setuid root executable. If POV-Ray does not use SVGAlib display, first try (as root):

chown root.root povray
chmod 4755 povray

Note: Doing this may have serious security implications. Running POV-Ray as root or through 'sudo' might be a better idea.

If it still doesn't work then make sure SVGAlib is installed on your machine and works properly. Anything that can at least use the 320x200x256 mode (ie regular VGA) should be fine, although modes up to 1280x1024x16M are possible. If you do not have root priviledges or can't have the system admin install POV-Ray, then you must use the X Window or text display which do not require any special system priviledges to run. If you are using a display resolution that is lower than what you are rendering, the display will be scaled to fit as much of the viewing window as possible.

5.3.3.1 X Window display   5.3.3.3 Output file formats


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