FracTest supports numerous options on the command line. These can be used to start it in batch mode, or to set up cluster computing; they can also be used to automate fractal rendering. These options are described here.
FracTest has three distinct modes of operation, which are selected on the command line:
Each of these has its own set of applicable command-line parameters, which will be described in the following sections.
To see the full set of available options, use the command
This will list the usage for all three modes.
In interactive mode, the following options are available:
Run in the named session. If it can't be opened, for example if it is in use, the session chooser will appear to allow you to choose a different session.
Normally, each machine used for computation will have a number of work threads created on it equal to the number of logical CPUs it has: i.e. CPUs × 1. You can override that with this parameter, which is the number which will be multiplied by the number of CPUs to get the number of threads. For example, if you only want half the usual number of threads, use --threadfac 0.5.
You can use values greater than 1 to increase the number of threads. This threading factor will be sent to all servers.
This option forces each machine to use the specified number of threads.
This prevents an internal compute server being created on the current host. To do any work, you will need to add other servers.
The argument server-names is a comma-separated list of compute servers to use for computation. The cluster computing page has more information on this.
Tells FracTest to periodically (every minute, currently) output some stats while computing. Not much maintained, and not much use at the moment.
Set the display resolution in DPI. Unfortunately Java doesn't do a very good job of determining the display resolution; if the layout doesn't work well, this parameter might help.
Use the named numeric precision for computation. One of:
Normally, leave this on "auto".
Render to the named image size, which is one of:
This is useful when providing a png-file on the command line; it overrides the image size in that file's parameters.
Sets the progressive rendering mode to the named mode, which is one of:
This is useful when providing a png-file on the command line; it overrides the progressive mode in that file's parameters.
Sets the anti-aliasing mode to the named mode, which is one of:
This is useful when providing a png-file on the command line; it overrides the AA mode in that file's parameters.
When rendering a named png-file, save the result over the original file.
When rendering a named png-file, save the result to a JPEG file.
When rendering a named png-file, exit on completion.
When rendering a named png-file, print a performance report after rendering.
Load and render the named PNG file. The parameters above can be used to override the image size, AA mode, etc.
This can be useful for automating certain tasks. For example, a performance benchmark can be obtained with a command like this:
In batch mode, the following options are available:
The parameter --batch signals that Fractest is to run in batch mode. Many of the remaining parameters are described above. The unique ones are described here:
Run in the named session. Unlike
interactive mode, if the named session can't be opened, FracTest will fail
with an error message. The default session for batch mode is
Batch.
Watch the given folder for jobs. Described fully on the batch mode page.
In batch mode, place rendered files here. The default is "Output".
In server mode, the following options are available:
The parameter --server signals that Fractest is to run in server mode. There is one other option:
Runs the server on the given port number. On the controller, you will need to add this port number to the server's host name, as in server:1234.
This is useful to run multiple servers on one machine.
