V-Ray Standalone
Portable Installation of V-Ray Standalone
This page provides information on the V-Ray Standalone Portable Installation.
Last updated 20 November 2025
This page provides information on the V-Ray Standalone Portable Installation.
Overview
The V-Ray Standalone installation file (.exe) can be unpacked and used as a portable version. Creating a Portable installation provides several advantages over the regular installer:
- The Portable installation allows for setting a custom environment when starting each instance. To compare, running the regular installation multiple times overwrites the V-Ray environment variables.
- The Portable installation can be used to run V-Ray and V-Ray Standalone from any location or even a network drive. That way, multiple users can start V-Ray and V-Ray Standalone using just a script that sets up the environment variables without the need to run local installations.
- Upgrading a Portable installation is a lot easier too, as you don't need to run the installer on every user's computer.
- The Portable installation allows for quick switching between different V-Ray Standalone versions without reinstalling it.
When using V-Ray from a Portable installation, the EULA needs to be accepted to start a render.
Required steps to run V-Ray Standalone
To create a Portable installation, you need to:
1. Download a V-Ray Standalone installation file. Click the button to do so.
2. Unpack the installation file. See the Unpack the installation file section of this page for more information.
3. Set up the environment variables needed to run V-Ray Standalone. See the Environment setup section of this page for more information.
4. Set up your license. Visit the Licensing section to find out how.
5. Run V-Ray Standalone.
Unpacking the installation file
NOTE that the cases here show example versions of V-Ray Standalone. The version you are using might differ.
Unpacking the installation creates folders in your specified location, which you can later use to install V-Ray Standalone on any computer and in any location you like. Here is a detailed step-by-step guide:
Windows
Linux
macOS
- To unpack the installation file, open the Command Prompt. Type out: the location of the installer that you just downloaded -unpackInstall= location where you wish to unpack. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the installer and folder into Command Prompt to insert their directories. Press Enter to run the command. It should look something like this:
<code data-v-c2b1f83f=""><span data-v-c2b1f83f="" class="line">C:/Users/Username/Downloads/vraystd_adv_61003_x64_vc14.exe -unpackInstall=<chosen_location></span></code>
- To unpack the executable version of the installer, open the Terminal. Type out: the location of the installer you just downloaded -unpackInstall=location where you wish to unpack. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the installer and folder into Terminal to insert their directories. Press Enter to run the command. It should look something like this:
<code data-v-c2b1f83f=""><span data-v-c2b1f83f="" class="line">/home/Username/Downloads/vraystd_adv_61003_centos7_clang-gcc-6.3 -unpackInstall=<chosen_location></span></code>
- To mount the executable version of the installer, double-click on the .dmg file. Alternatively, the file can be mounted through Terminal using the following command:
<code data-v-c2b1f83f=""><span data-v-c2b1f83f="" class="line">hdiutil attach vraystd_adv_61003_maverics_x64_gcc-4.2-cpp.dmg</span></code>
- After the file is mounted, right-click and go to Show Contents > MacOS. Here you can find the run_installer file, which is used for this type of installation.
- Open a new Terminal and type out: the location of the run_installer file -unpackInstall=location where you wish to unpack. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the installer and folder into Terminal to insert their directories. Press Enter to run the command. It should look something like this:
<code data-v-c2b1f83f=""><span data-v-c2b1f83f="" class="line">/Volumes/V-Ray\ Standalone\ mavericks_x64/vraystd_adv_61003_mavericks_x64_gcc-4.2-cpp.app/Contents/MacOS/run_installer -unpackInstall=<chosen_location></span></code>
Environment setup
Before you run V-Ray Standalone, you need to set up an environment. There are some specific steps to consider. The license setup is the last requirement, as V-Ray needs to be instructed where to look for a valid license.
Please read the sections below for more information and examples.
Windows
Linux
macOS
OS | Action | Variable | Location | Description | Example |
|---|
OS | Action | Variable | Location | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Windows | Set | VRAY_OSL_PATH | \opensl | Required for the OSL definitions of the OSL plugin. | set VRAY_OSL_PATH=D:\vray_builds\vray6xxxx_std\opensl |
Windows | Set | VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH 1 | arbitrary location | Points V-Ray to a V-Ray license. | set VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH=<folder_containing_vrlclient.xml> |
OS | Action | Variable | Location | Description | Example |
|---|
OS | Action | Variable | Location | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | Set | VRAY_OSL_PATH | /opensl | Required for the OSL definitions of the OSL plugin. | export VRAY_OSL_PATH=/home/Username/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/opensl |
Linux | Extend | LD_LIBRARY_PATH | /lib | Required to run V-Ray itself. | export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/Username/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/lib/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH |
Linux | Set | VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH | arbitrary location | Points V-Ray to a V-Ray license. | export VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH=<folder_containing_vrlclient.xml> |
OS | Action | Variable | Location | Description | Example |
|---|
OS | Action | Variable | Location | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
macOS | Set | VRAY_OSL_PATH | /opensl | Required for the OSL definitions of the OSL plugin. | export VRAY_OSL_PATH=/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/opensl |
macOS | Extend | DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH | /lib | Required to run V-Ray itself. | export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/vray_builds/vray6xxxx_std/lib/:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH |
macOS | Set | VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH 1 | arbitrary location | Points V-Ray to a V-Ray license. | export VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH=<folder_containing_vrlclient.xml> |
Tags
The [STDROOT] and [PLUGINS] tags in the script are normally replaced with their respective directories by the V-Ray installer. However, if you are using a version earlier than V-Ray 6, update 1, and performing a portable installation, it is necessary to manually replace these tags. The [STDROOT] tag needs to be replaced with the full path to the vray folder in the portable file. The [PLUGINS] tag needs to be replaced with the full path to the maya_vray folder in the portable file. The tags are located in the following files:
Linux and MacOS:
maya_vray/vray/VRay.app/Contents/MacOS/vray.bin
maya_vray/vray/VRay.app/Contents/MacOS/vrayserver
vray/vray_netinstall_client_setup.sh
vray/samples/appsdk/setenv39.sh
vray/bin/vraymayaserver.conf
vray/bin/registerVRayServerDaemon
vray/bin/initVRayServerDaemon
vray/bin/vraymayaserver.service
maya_vray/bin/plgparamsdata
Windows:
maya_vray/bin/plgparamsdata
If you want to use any additional tools like the standalone denoiser, or the VRIMG to OpenEXR converter, etc., then also add <unpacked_location>/vray/bin to the PATH environment variable.
Please note that by default the V-Ray installer will set the TdrLevel (that is GPU timeout detection and recovery) to 0 (disabled).
Notes
1.VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH needs to point to the folder that contains the vrlclient.xml file that holds the V-Ray license server settings (IP address and port number). Alternatively, using the tool to set or change your license settings will create the vrlclient.xml file for you at a default location and there will be no need to explicitly define its location the VRAY_AUTH_CLIENT_FILE_PATH variable. However, it might be useful to use the variable to define per-user license settings.
For the case where using the environment variable is the best option for you and you need to create the vrlclient.xml file manually, the example below shows what it should contain: