Taisei Project - Environment Variables

Introduction

Some of Taisei’s more advanced configuration options are delegated to environment variables. This document attempts to describe them all.

Generally you don’t need to set any of them. They are intended for developers and advanced users only. Therefore, familiarity with the concept is assumed.

In addition to the variables listed here, those processed by our runtime dependencies (such as SDL) also take effect, unless stated otherwise.

Variables

Virtual filesystem

TAISEI_RES_PATH

Default: unset

If set, overrides the default resource directory path. This is where Taisei looks for game data. The default path is platform and build specific:

On macOS, it will be the Contents/Resources/data directory inside of the Taisei.app bundle.
On Linux, *BSD, and most other Unix-like systems (without -DRELATIVE), it will be $prefix/share/taisei. This path is static and determined at compile time.
On Windows and other platforms when built with -DRELATIVE, it will be the data directory relative to the executable (or to whatever SDL_GetBasePath returns on the given platform).

TAISEI_STORAGE_PATH

Default: unset

If set, overrides the default storage directory path. This is where Taisei saves your configuration, progress, screenshots and replays. Taisei also loads custom data from the resources subdirectory in there, if any, in addition to the stock assets. The custom resources shadow the default ones if the names clash. The default path is platform specific, and is equivalent to the return value of SDL_GetPrefPath("", "taisei"):

On Windows, it’s %APPDATA%\taisei.
On macOS, it’s $HOME/Library/Application Support/taisei.
On Linux, *BSD, and most other Unix-like systems, it’s $XDG_DATA_HOME/taisei or $HOME/.local/share/taisei.

TAISEI_CACHE_PATH

Default: unset

If set, overrides the default cache directly path. This is where Taisei stores transcoded Basis Universal textures and translated shaders to speed up future loading times.

On Windows, it’s %LOCALAPPDATA%\taisei\cache.
On macOS, it’s $HOME/Library/Caches/taisei.
On Linux, *BSD, and most other Unix-like systems, it’s $XDG_CACHE_HOME/taisei or $HOME/.cache/taisei.

It is safe to delete this directly; Taisei will rebuild the cache as it loads resources. If you don’t want Taisei to write a persistent cache, you can set this to a non-writable directory.

Resources

TAISEI_NOASYNC: Default: 0

If 1, disables asynchronous loading. Increases loading times, might slightly reduce CPU and memory usage during loads. Generally not recommended unless you encounter a race condition bug, in which case you should report it.
TAISEI_NOUNLOAD: Default: 0

If 1, loaded resources are never unloaded. Increases memory usage, reduces filesystem reads and loading times over time.
TAISEI_NOPRELOAD: Default: 0

If 1, disables preloading. All resources are only loaded as they are needed. Reduces loading times and memory usage, but may cause stuttering during gameplay.
TAISEI_PRELOAD_REQUIRED: Default: 0

If 1, the game will crash with an error message when it attempts to use a resource that hasn’t been previously preloaded. Useful for developers to debug missing preloads.
TAISEI_PRELOAD_SHADERS: Default: 0

If 1, Taisei will load all shader programs at startup. This is mainly useful for developers to quickly ensure that none of them fail to compile.
TAISEI_AGGRESSIVE_PRELOAD: Default: 0

If 1, Taisei will scan all available resources and try to load all of them at startup. Implies TAISEI_NOUNLOAD=1.
TAISEI_BASISU_FORCE_UNCOMPRESSED: Default: 0

If 1, Basis Universal-compressed textures will be decompressed on the CPU and sent to the GPU in an uncompressed form. For debugging.
TAISEI_BASISU_MAX_MIP_LEVELS: Default: 0

If >0, limits the amount of mipmap layers loaded from Basis Universal textures. For debugging.
TAISEI_BASISU_MIP_BIAS: Default: 0

If >0, makes Taisei load lower resolution versions of Basis Universal textures that have mipmaps. Each level halves the resolution in each dimension.
TAISEI_TASKMGR_NUM_THREADS: Default: 0 (auto-detect)

How many background worker threads to create for handling tasks such as resource loading. If 0, this will default to double the amount of logical CPU cores on the host machine.

Display and rendering

TAISEI_VIDEO_RECREATE_ON_FULLSCREEN

Default: 0; 1 on X11

If 1, Taisei will re-create the window when switching between fullscreen and windowed modes. Can be useful to work around some window manager bugs.

TAISEI_VIDEO_RECREATE_ON_RESIZE

Default: 0; 1 on X11 and Emscripten

If 1, Taisei will re-create the window when the window size is changed in the settings. Can be useful to work around some window manager bugs.

TAISEI_RENDERER

Default: gl33 (but see below)

Selects the rendering backend to use. Currently available options are:

gl33: the OpenGL 3.3 Core renderer
gles30: the OpenGL ES 3.0 renderer
sdlgpu: the SDL3 GPU API renderer
null: the no-op renderer (nothing is displayed)

Note that the actual subset of usable backends, as well as the default choice, can be controlled by build options. The official releases of Taisei for Windows and macOS override the default to sdlgpu for improved compatibility.

TAISEI_FRAMERATE_GRAPHS

Default: 0 for release builds, 1 for debug builds

If 1, framerate graphs will be drawn on the HUD.

TAISEI_OBJPOOL_STATS

Default: 0

Displays some statistics about usage of in-game objects.

OpenGL and GLES renderers

TAISEI_LIBGL: Default: unset

OpenGL library to load instead of the default. The value has a platform-specific meaning (it’s passed to the equivalent of dlopen). Takes precedence over SDL_OPENGL_LIBRARY if set. Has no effect if Taisei is linked to libgl (which is not recommended, because it’s not portable).
TAISEI_GL_DEBUG: Default: 0

Enables OpenGL debugging. A debug context will be requested, all OpenGL messages will be logged, and errors are fatal. Requires the KHR_debug or ARB_debug_output extension.
TAISEI_GL_EXT_OVERRIDES: Default: unset

Space-separated list of OpenGL extensions that are assumed to be supported, even if the driver says they aren’t. Prefix an extension with - to invert this behaviour. Might be used to work around bugs in some weird/ancient/broken drivers, but your chances are slim. Note that this only affects code paths that actually test for the given extensions, not the actual OpenGL functionality. Some OpenGL implementations (such as Mesa) provide their own mechanisms for controlling extensions. You most likely want to use that instead.
TAISEI_GL_WORKAROUND_DISABLE_NORM16: Default: unset

If 1, disables use of normalized 16 bit-per-channel textures in OpenGL. May be useful to work around broken drivers. If unset (default), will try to automatically disable them on drivers that are known to be problematic. If 0, 16-bit textures will always be used when available.
TAISEI_GL33_CORE_PROFILE: Default: 1

If 1, try to create a Core profile context in the gl33 backend. If 0, create a Compatibility profile context.
TAISEI_GL33_FORWARD_COMPATIBLE: Default: 1

If 1, try to create a forward-compatible context with some deprecated OpenGL features disabled.
TAISEI_GL33_VERSION_MAJOR: Default: 3

Request an OpenGL context with this major version.
TAISEI_GL33_VERSION_MINOR: Default: 3

Request an OpenGL context with this minor version.
TAISEI_ANGLE_WEBGL: Default: 0; 1 on Windows

If 1 and the gles30 renderer backend has been configured to use ANGLE, it will create a WebGL-compatible context. This is needed to work around broken cubemaps in ANGLE’s D3D11 backend.

SDLGPU renderer

TAISEI_SDLGPU_DEBUG: Default: 0

If 1, create the GPU context in debug mode. This enables some extra assertions in SDLGPU and a backend-specific debugging mechanism, if available On Vulkan this enables validation layers.
TAISEI_SDLGPU_PREFER_LOWPOWER: Default: 0

If 1, prefer to select a low-power, efficient GPU for rendering when multiple are available. Usually this would be the integrated GPU on a laptop with both integrated and discrete graphics.
TAISEI_SDLGPU_FAUX_BACKBUFFER: Default: 1

If 1, render the backbuffer into a staging texture before copying it to the swapchain at presentation. This is needed to emulate swapchain reads on SDLGPU, where the swapchain is write-only. Disabling this option eliminates the copy overhead, but breaks screenshots. If you don’t need the built-in screenshot functionality, it is safe to turn it off.

Audio

TAISEI_AUDIO_BACKEND

Default: sdl

Selects the audio playback backend to use. Currently available options are:

sdl: the SDL2 audio subsystem, with a custom mixer
null: no audio playback

Note that the actual subset of usable backends, as well as the default choice, can be controlled by build options.

Timing

TAISEI_HIRES_TIMER: Default: 1

If 1, tries to use the system’s high resolution timer to limit the game’s framerate. Disabling this is not recommended; it will likely make Taisei run slower or faster than intended and the reported FPS will be less accurate.
TAISEI_FRAMELIMITER_SLEEP: Default: 3

If over 0, tries to give up processing time to other applications while waiting for the next frame, if at least frame_time / this_value amount of time is remaining. Increasing this value reduces CPU usage, but may harm performance. Set to 0 for the v1.2 default behaviour.
TAISEI_FRAMELIMITER_COMPENSATE: Default: 1

If 1, the framerate limiter may let frames finish earlier than normal after sudden frametime spikes. This achieves better timing accuracy, but may hurt fluidity if the framerate is too unstable.
TAISEI_FRAMELIMITER_LOGIC_ONLY: Default: 0

Experimental

If 1, only the logic framerate will be capped; new rendering frames will be processed as quickly as possible, with no delay. This inherently desynchronizes logic and rendering frames, and therefore, some logic frames may be dropped if rendering is too slow. However, unlike with the synchronous mode, the game speed will remain roughly constant in those cases. TAISEI_FRAMELIMITER_SLEEP, TAISEI_FRAMELIMITER_COMPENSATE, and the frameskip setting have no effect in this mode.

Demo Playback

TAISEI_DEMO_TIME: Default: 3600 (1 minute)

How much time (in frames) of user inactivity is required to begin playing demo replays in the menu. If <=0, demo playback will be disabled.
TAISEI_DEMO_INTER_TIME: Default: 1800 (30 seconds)

How much time (in frames) of user inactivity is required to advance to the next demo in the sequence in between demo playback. This delay will be reset back to TAISEI_DEMO_TIME on user activity.

Kiosk Mode

TAISEI_KIOSK

Default: 0

If 1, run Taisei in “kiosk mode”. This forces the game into fullscreen, makes the window uncloseable, disables the “Quit” main menu option, and enables a watchdog that resets the game back to the main menu and default settings if there’s no user activity for too long.

Useful for running a public “arcade cabinet” at events. You can customize the game’s default setting by placing a config.default file into one of the resource search paths, e.g. $HOME/.local/share/taisei/resources. The format is the same as the config file created by Taisei in the storage directly.

TAISEI_KIOSK_PREVENT_QUIT

Default: 0

If 1, allows users to quit the game in kiosk mode. Useful if you’re running a multi-game arcade cabinet setup.

TAISEI_KIOSK_TIMEOUT

Default: 7200 (2 minutes)

Timeout for the reset watchdog in kiosk mode (in frames).

Frame Dump Mode

TAISEI_FRAMEDUMP: Default: unset

Experimental

If set, enables the frame dump mode. In frame dump mode, Taisei will write every rendered frame as a .png file into a directory specified by this variable.
TAISEI_FRAMEDUMP_SOURCE: Default: screen

If set to screen, the frame dump mode will record the whole window, similar to taking a screenshot. If set to viewport, it will record only the contents of the in-game viewport framebuffer, and will only be active while in-game. Note that it is not the same as cropping a screenshot to the size of the viewport. Some elements that are rendered on top of the viewport, such as dialogue portraits, will not be captured.
TAISEI_FRAMEDUMP_COMPRESSION: Default: 1

Level of deflate compression to apply to dumped frames, in the 0–9 range. Lower values will produce larger files that will encode faster. Larger values may create a large backlog of frames to encode that will consume a lot of RAM, depending on your CPU’s capabilities.

Miscellaneous

TAISEI_GAMEMODE: Default: 1

Linux only

If 1, enables automatic integration with Feral Interactive’s GameMode daemon. Only meaningful for GameMode-enabled builds.
TAISEI_REPLAY_DESYNC_CHECK_FREQUENCY: Default: 300

How frequently to write desync detection hashes into replays (every X frames). Lowering this value results in larger replays with more accurate desync detection. Intended for debugging desyncing replays with --rereplay.

Logging

Taisei’s logging system currently has five basic levels and works by dispatching messages to a few output handlers. Each handler has a level filter, which is configured by a separate environment variable. All of those variables work the same way: their value looks like an IRC mode string, and represents a modification of the handler’s default settings. If this doesn’t make sense, take a look at the Examples section.

The levels

Debug (d) is the most verbose level. It contains random information about internal workings of the game and is disabled for release builds at source level.
Info (i) logs some events that are expected to occur during normal operation, for example when a spell is unlocked or a screenshot is taken.
Warning (w) usually complains about misuse of the engine features, deprecations, unimplemented functionality, other small anomalies that aren’t directly detrimental to functionality.
Error (e) alerts of non-critical errors, for example a missing optional resource, corrupted progress data, or failure to save a replay due to insufficient storage space or privileges.
Fatal (f) is an irrecoverable failure condition. Such an event most likely signifies a programming error or a broken installation. The game will immediately crash after writing a message with this log level. On some platforms, it will also display a graphical message box.
All (a) is not a real log level, but a shortcut directive representing all possible log levels. See Examples for usage.

The variables

TAISEI_LOGLVLS_CONSOLE: Default: +a (All)

Controls what log levels may go to the console. This acts as a master switch for TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDOUT and TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDERR.
TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDOUT: Default: +di (Debug, Info)

Controls what log levels go to standard output. Log levels that are disabled by TAISEI_LOGLVLS_CONSOLE are ignored.
TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDERR: Default: +wef (Warning, Error, Fatal)

Controls what log levels go to standard error. Log levels that are disabled by TAISEI_LOGLVLS_CONSOLE are ignored.
TAISEI_LOGLVLS_FILE: Default: +a (All)

Controls what log levels go to the log file ({storage directory}/log.txt).
TAISEI_LOG_ASYNC: Default: 1

If 1, log messages are written asynchronously from a background thread. This mostly benefits platforms where writing to the console or files is very slow (such as Windows). You may want to disable this when debugging.
TAISEI_LOG_ASYNC_FAST_SHUTDOWN: Default: 0

If 1, don’t wait for the whole log queue to be written when shutting down. This will make the game quit faster if log writing is slow, at the expense of log integrity. Ignored if TAISEI_LOG_ASYNC is disabled.
TAISEI_SDL_LOG: Default: 0

If >0, redirects SDL’s log output into the Taisei log. The value controls the minimum log priority; see SDL_log.h for details.

Examples

In release builds: print Info messages to stdout, in addition to Warnings, Errors, and Fatals as per default:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 446)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDOUT=+i
```
In Debug builds: remove Debug and Info output from the console:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 452)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDOUT=-di
```
OR:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 458)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_CONSOLE=-di
```
Don’t save anything to the log file:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 464)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_FILE=-a
```
Don’t print anything to the console:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 470)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_CONSOLE=-a
```
Don’t save anything to the log file, except for Errors and Fatals:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 476)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_FILE=-a+ef
```
Print everything except Debug to stderr, nothing to stdout:
System Message: WARNING/2 (../doc/ENVIRON.rst, line 482)

Cannot analyze code. Pygments package not found.
```
.. code:: sh

   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDOUT=-a
   TAISEI_LOGLVLS_STDERR=+a-d
```