VirtualGL For Mac

VirtualGL is an open source package which gives any Unix or Linux remote display software the ability to run OpenGL applications with full 3D hardware acceleration. Some remote display software, such as VNC, lacks the ability to run OpenGL applications entirely.

Other remote display software forces OpenGL applications to use a slow software-only OpenGL renderer, to the detriment of performance as well as compatibility.

And running OpenGL applications using the traditional remote X-Windows approach causes all of the OpenGL commands and 3D data to be sent over the network to be rendered on the client machine, which is not a tenable proposition unless the data is relatively small and static, unless the network is fast, and unless the OpenGL application is specifically tuned for a remote X-Windows environment.

When using VirtualGL, the 3D data and OpenGL commands are instead redirected to a 3D graphics accelerator on the server machine, and only the rendered 3D images are sent to the client machine.

VirtualGL thus "virtualizes" 3D graphics hardware, allowing it to be co-located in the "cold room" with compute and storage resources. VirtualGL also allows 3D graphics hardware to be shared among multiple users, and it provides real-time performance on even the most modest of networks.

This makes it possible for large, noisy, hot 3D workstations to be replaced with laptops or even thinner clients; but more importantly, it eliminates the workstation and the network as barriers to data size.

Users can now visualize gigabytes and gigabytes of data in real time without needing to cache any of the data locally or sit in front of the machine that is rendering the data.