How-To enable 3d acceleration in VMware server
 

I am trying to enable 3d acceleration for my windows machine running in VMware server 1.04 under Ubuntu 7.1 and using the nvidia restricted drivers. I have tried adding the lines

mks.enable3d = "TRUE"
svga.vramSizesvga.vramSize = "67108864"

to my .vmx file which results in the machine shutting off almost immediately after startup. Does anyone know how to get 3d acceleration working?

Caveats:

• I don't do "Winders".
• My W2k box died in May 2005. I moved its data drive to my Linux box & never looked back.
• I lean toward VirtualBox for VM-ing.
• MEPIS is my distro.
• I am not currently using any nVidia cards.
• I.E., I know little about the specific stuff you're using.

That being said, I suspect that 3d acceleration is too difficult to do in VM's. Recent MEPIS CD's have a VMWare/VirtualBox boot option that (de-?)tunes the video to make VM-ing work. That's just my suspicion, maybe someone who really knows about this will chime in w/ the real answer.

Wow, you're kind of a smarmy jerk aren't you?

Just answer the question. You don't have to make people feel awful just for asking a question.

I guess there isn't a virtualization tool that already supports a good degree of 3D acceleration.

For running Windows 3D apps, I guess you're better off with a Windows box.

I don't believe true 3D acceleration is possible with the current virtualization software available. The guest OS can't see your physical video card, it sees an emulated video card within it's little virtual emulated computer.

foxmajik,
There is no reason for name calling in response to my attempt to indicate my qualifications, or lack thereof, to answer the Q -- a Q that had gone w/o reply, let alone a decent answer, for almost 40 days.

I think an apology is in order.


BTW, I see too many presumably sincere & otherwise knowledgeable people jump in when the problem or solution is specific to to the distro or hardware or something else that they have no experience with, & as a result their answer is less than optimal. It's especially annoying when this happens 4, or even 14, hours after the OP.

When I may be in over my head, I try to do 2 things:
1. Wait before posting. -- The more ignorant I feel, the longer I wait.
2. Warn of my potential ignorance.


Update: I now have a box w/ an nVidia card. I also have been working more w/ VirtualBox & getting advice from local folk who use VMware; as of Wed. night the word is that you can't do 3D in a guest using any currently available host, & whichever host software company makes this available 1st is going to have a spike in popularity.

To answer the question:

It's not currently possible to use 3D graphics on any current virtual machine software for the PC.

On the Mac, VMWare Fusion supports 3D acceleration in OS X.

Note how I was capable of answering the question without personally attacking anyone, asserting my authority, calling into question anyone's moral position or logging on entirely for the purpose of making yet another person feel bad.

Sometimes all you really need to do is answer the question.

While I don't read in any malice from Archtoad's first comment... I respect your opinion and suggest you take these kind of situations to a private medium in the future. It is certainly inappropriate to belittle others in this forum, it is also inappropriate to post personal messages to somebody off topic in a thread... Lets all try and play nicely with others now.

As for the answer to the post, like has been said by foxmajik, to my knowledge the only solutions which allows virtualization of Windows and 3D support are MacOS specific (VMWare Fusion and Parellels Desktop 3.0).

I'm not sure that this is entirely correct anymore ...

VMWare Workstation 6.5beta says:
"Accelerated 3-D graphics on Windows XP guests — Workstation 6.5 virtual machines now work with applications that use DirectX 9 accelerated graphics with shaders up through Shader Model 2.0 on Windows XP guests. Hosts can be running Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Linux."

Although I admit that the meaning is a little unclear - "now work with" could mean that a software solution has been implemented, which isn't really what you want.

Depending on what you're trying to do, you could look into VMGL (previously known as Xen-GL). Though usually people want to run games which tend to use DirectX rather than OpenGL.

I haven't tried either of these solutions myself, so I can't vouch for their absolute suitability, but they're worth looking into.

Just an FYI, I created an account just now to clear up this Topic. As when I was searching for the CORRECT way to enable DX Acceleration in VMware I saw this.



1. you are running Vmware server. Vmware server does NOT support Hard ware acceleration for Graphics. You can enable adapter acceleration in your Guest, but that will not = D3D/OGL acceleration for VMware server

2. Vmware workstation 5.5 supports DX 8.1 and OGL acceleration. You need to add some lines in your Vm config file. Search Vmware's website for them.

3. Vmware 6.5+ will support Semi-Full hardware acceleration of your video adapters. As in the post above that explains this, Vmware states its beta because they do not want to outright support this feature via their Support channels. But the option is there and it does work.



I post this purely for a reference point for people who search things on Google. If you need to know how to enable DX support in your Guest OS in Vmware goto Vmware's forums, there is an easy search function that will bring up the correct post(s) on how to accomplish it.

Even if the feature was available, wouldn't someone have to write drivers for the guest OS that support this 3D acceleration?

Which video card does the 3D acceleration emulate?