## 1.6 Understanding POV-Ray Options

Options are what previous versions of POV-Ray used to refer to as command-line options. The term is no longer accurate for POV-Ray 3, because the command line is only one way of passing options to the program. There are now four ways you can pass an option to POV-Ray:

1. You can store it in the povray.ini file in the installation directory, which is normally `/usr/local/share/povray35`. This is a special INI file. Whenever you start up POV-Ray for Unix, the program looks for a file called `povray.ini` in this directory. This means POV-Ray for Unix always starts up with the settings defined in `povray.ini`. If you want to make changes to the way POV-Ray works by default, you should make them in `povray.ini`.
2. You can store it in a `povray.ini` file in the current directory. POV-Ray looks for a `povray.ini` file in the current directory whenever it starts rendering, but after it has read any `povray.ini` file in the installation directory. Options in an INI file in the current directory override options in any copy of povray.ini in the installation directory.
3. You can store it in an INI file created for a particular scene. If you drop a specific INI file into the POV-Ray window, any options set in it will override corresponding options in previously activated INI files (including `povray.ini`). Any options not included in the INI file will be unchanged, that is to say, they will remain as the master `povray.ini` set them.
4. You can enter it on the command line. Any command-line option overrides corresponding options in either `povray.ini` or any other INI file loaded during the current session. POV-Ray for Unix interprets the command line from left to right, so that any option (or INI file) on the command line overrides a corresponding option (or another INI file) to its left on the command line.

In 'Understanding POV-Ray Options' ...
1.6.1 | Special Command-Line Options