1rtcNewDevice(3) Embree Ray Tracing Kernels 3 rtcNewDevice(3)
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3
4
5 NAME
6 rtcNewDevice - creates a new device
7
8 SYNOPSIS
9 #include <embree3/rtcore.h>
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11 RTCDevice rtcNewDevice(const char* config);
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13 DESCRIPTION
14 This function creates a new device and returns a handle to this device.
15 The device object is reference counted with an initial reference count
16 of 1. The handle can be released using the rtcReleaseDevice API call.
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18 The device object acts as a class factory for all other object types.
19 All objects created from the device (like scenes, geometries, etc.)
20 hold a reference to the device, thus the device will not be destroyed
21 unless these objects are destroyed first.
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23 Objects are only compatible if they belong to the same device, e.g it
24 is not allowed to create a geometry in one device and attach it to a
25 scene created with a different device.
26
27 A configuration string (config argument) can be passed to the device
28 construction. This configuration string can be NULL to use the default
29 configuration.
30
31 When creating the device, Embree reads configurations for the device
32 from the following locations in order:
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34 1) config string passed to the rtcNewDevice function
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36 2) .embree3 file in the application folder
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38 3) .embree3 file in the home folder
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40 Settings performed later overwrite previous settings. This way the
41 configuration for the application can be changed globally (either
42 through the rtcNewDevice call or through the .embree3 file in the
43 application folder), and each user has the option to modify the config‐
44 uration to fit their needs.
45
46 The following configuration is supported:
47
48 · threads=[int]: Specifies a number of build threads to use. A value
49 of 0 enables all detected hardware threads. By default all hardware
50 threads are used.
51
52 · set_affinity=[0/1]: When enabled, build threads are affinitized to
53 hardware threads. This option is disabled by default on standard
54 CPUs, and enabled by default on Xeon Phi Processors.
55
56 · start_threads=[0/1]: When enabled, the build threads are started
57 upfront. This can be useful for benchmarking to exclude thread cre‐
58 ation time. This option is disabled by default.
59
60 · isa=[sse2,sse4.2,avx,avx2,avx512knl,avx512skx]: Use specified ISA.
61 By default the ISA is selected automatically.
62
63 · max_isa=[sse2,sse4.2,avx,avx2,avx512knl,avx512skx]: Configures the
64 automated ISA selection to use maximally the specified ISA.
65
66 · hugepages=[0/1]: Enables or disables usage of huge pages. Under
67 Linux huge pages are used by default but under Windows and macOS they
68 are disabled by default.
69
70 · enable_selockmemoryprivilege=[0/1]: When set to 1, this enables the
71 SeLockMemoryPrivilege privilege with is required to use huge pages on
72 Windows. This option has an effect only under Windows and is ignored
73 on other platforms. See Section [Huge Page Support] for more
74 details.
75
76 · ignore_config_files=[0/1]: When set to 1, configuration files are
77 ignored. Default is 0.
78
79 · verbose=[0,1,2,3]: Sets the verbosity of the output. When set to 0,
80 no output is printed by Embree, when set to a higher level more out‐
81 put is printed. By default Embree does not print anything on the
82 console.
83
84 · frequency_level=[simd128,simd256,simd512]: Specifies the frequency
85 level the application want to run on, which can be either: a) simd128
86 for apps that do not use AVX instructions, b) simd256 for apps that
87 use heavy AVX instruction, c) simd512 for apps that use heavy AVX-512
88 instructions. When some frequency level is specified, Embree will
89 avoid doing optimizations that may reduce the frequency level below
90 the level specified. E.g. if your app does not use AVX instructions
91 setting "frequency_level=simd128" will cause some CPUs to run at
92 highest frequency, which may result in higher application perfor‐
93 mance. However, this will prevent Embree from using AVX optimiza‐
94 tions to achieve higher ray tracing performance, thus applications
95 that trace many rays may still perform better with the default set‐
96 ting of simd256, even though this reduces frequency on some CPUs.
97
98 Different configuration options should be separated by commas, e.g.:
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100 rtcNewDevice("threads=1,isa=avx");
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102 EXIT STATUS
103 On success returns a handle of the created device. On failure returns
104 NULL as device and sets a per-thread error code that can be queried
105 using rtcGetDeviceError(NULL).
106
107 SEE ALSO
108 [rtcRetainDevice], [rtcReleaseDevice]
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111
112 rtcNewDevice(3)