The emulation targets have their own target specific drivers which are
loaded by XRT. Thus, the same CPU binary can be run as-is without recompiling, by just
changing the target mode during runtime. Based on the value of the XCL_EMULATION_MODE environment variable, XRT loads the
target specific driver and makes the application interface with an emulation model of
the hardware. The allowed values of XCL_EMULATION_MODE
are sw_emu and hw_emu.
If XCL_EMULATION_MODE is not set, then XRT will load
the hardware driver.
Important: It is required
to set
XCL_EMULATION_MODE when running
emulation.Figure 1. XRT Drivers
You can also use the xrt.ini file to
configure various options applicable to emulation. There is an [Emulation] specific section in xrt.ini, as described in xrt.ini File.