Force OpenGL software rendering for specific programs

I am running Ubuntu 16.10 in Virtualbox (v5.1.10 latest) on a Windows 7 guest. All OS are x64.

Since forever, Virtualbox has had the problem that enabled "3D HW acceleration" crashes some OPenGL based applications, prominently among them QtCreator. There has been the workaround to force software rendering for the problematic application like so:

$> LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 qtcreator

This used to be an acceptable compromise (Ubuntu is otherwise unusable without 3d acceleration), but it has stopped working after upgrading to Ubuntu 16.10 from Ubuntu 14.04.

What has changed? How do I now force SW rendering? Can you think of any other workarounds? Thanks.

1 Answer

$ LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 ./the_program_name

or

$ QT_XCB_FORCE_SOFTWARE_OPENGL=1 ./the_program_name