[Chimera-users] Question about background transparency

[Greg Couch]

On Wed, 9 May 2007, Vanacore, Roberto M wrote:

> What are the system requirements to run -bgopacity option in a windows
> machine?
>
> I've tried adding to option (--bgopacity) to the startup command but I
> can not get a transparent background
>
> I'm using Chimera 2.2199
>
> Thanks!
>
> Roberto

So you don't say if you're the integrated graphics of your computer or if 
you have a graphics card.  My guess is the former.  If you're not using a 
notebook computer and can add a graphics card, I expect that any current 
graphics card from NVidia or ATI will support the --bgopacity option 
(midrange graphics cards, $100-$200, give the best price/performance). 
FYI, you can also turn on background opacity using the Tools / Viewing 
Controls / Effects dialog and changing the transparent background toggle 
to true -- it works when --bgopacity works and vice-versa.

For Windows, to see the capabilities of your graphics setup, download 
<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/gregc/wglinfo.exe> and run it inside a 
Command Prompt window.  If there are any non-zero numbers in the a/sz 
column, then your graphics supports --bgopacity.

Linux/Mac X11 users can use the glxinfo program to find out the same about 
their graphics setup (it's the colorbuffer/a column).

 	Greg Couch
 	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab