HOW-TO: Enable 3D accelerated graphics

[rcardona2k]

It's pretty easy, as the YouTube video indicates. Go into Virtual Machine settings, choose Display under System Hardware and place a check box in "Accelerate 3D graphics".

[admin]

note** the VM must be powered down inorder to enable 3D

also for anyone who missed the info in the release notes I have added it here

VMware testing has determined that the following games, running in Windows XP Service Pack 2 virtual machines, are playable with Fusion experimental 3-D acceleration:

• Aliens vs. Predator Demo

• Breath of Fire IV

• Grand Theft Auto III (Tip: Set the Display Setup option Trails to OFF.)

• Hitman 2

• Lord of the Realms III

• Max Payne 1

• Max Payne 2

• Need for Speed Porsche Demo

• RalliSport Challenge

• Tony Hawk 3

• X-2 Rolling Demo

The fixed-function tests in 3dMark2001 operate successfully in Windows XP Service Pack 2 virtual machines with Fusion experimental 3-D acceleration.

If your Mac uses the Intel GMA 950 graphic chipset (found in Mac Minis and MacBooks), you may experience performance issues with 3-D enabled. Try increasing the memory for the virtual machine or lowering the resolution of the game.

Customizing the virtual machine's mouse settings for playing games

Most games require some custom mouse settings to work correctly. These settings lock the mouse to the virtual machine when you are running a game. Note: these settings will affect the performance of the mouse and disable the ability to move the mouse between the virtual machine and your Mac. The setting in the user's preference file will also prevent the use of the drag-and-drop feature from all virtual machines to the host machine. Remove the settings to revert back to default behavior.

To customize the virtual machine's mouse settings for playing games, use TextEdit to make the following changes while the virtual machine is powered off:

• In the virtual machine directory, add the following line to the end of the virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file:

vmmouse.present = "FALSE"

• In your home directory, add the following line to the end of the file <user>/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/preferences:

pref.motionUngrab = "FALSE"

These configuration settings do not take effect until you shut down the virtual machine, quit Fusion, and then restart Fusion and the virtual machine.

Note: When you edit a virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file, if you copy and paste text from a browser into the file using TextEdit, VMware Fusion might be unable to open the resulting .vmx file, because some applications (like Firefox) add legacy Mac characters (carriage returns) at the end of each line. This beta release of Fusion requires Mac OS X characters (line feeds) at the end of each line, and cannot understand legacy Mac characters. To work around this problem, convert the legacy end-of-line characters in the .vmx file to Mac OS X end-of-line characters:

1. Open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities.

2. Type

nano "~/Virtual Machines/vm-dir/vm-name.vmx"

where vm-dir and vm-name are the path and name of your .vmx file, and press Enter.

3. When nano loads, type Control-O, and press Enter. This converts the legacy end-of-line characters to Mac OS X end-of-line characters.

4. Type Control-X to exit.

[rcardona2k]

Thanks and it looks like it works 🙂



!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/407492168_d605b88337.jpg!

Any idea why 3D or OpenGL mode re-size the display to 640x480?

[Deryni]

I'm curious, but why is the 3D acceleration limited to only Windows XP SP2 guests? (Note that I don't mean "Why isn't it supported in my OS?", just curious why it's limited to one OS.)

[admin]

there are many different reason for this but it is important to know that there is nothing that prevents you from enabling it in other GOSes and you should feel free to give it a try, but your mileage may very.

[admin]

currently we do not scale the Host screen to match the running resolution of the game. On a PC when a 3D game runs it will be run at a specific resolution say for example a 640x480. where when running regular apps runs at 1280x1024. So when the game opens it will run at 640x480 and then adjust the system resolution to match so the game takes up the whole screen.

What you can do is put your VM into full screen mode and then open up the 3D game and try to adjust the game resolution to take up as much of your screen as possible. This can be difficult to do on some widescreen displays since many older games never had widescreen resolutions in mind, but if you are on a "normal" (one that supports 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200 ect..) display you should be able to get the 3d game to take up the full screen when running.

[bgertzfield]

Hey rcardona,

It's actually just dxdiag that forces a guest resize to 640x480. It's an odd duck. Real games will let you choose your guest resolution.

Thanks for giving it a try! We're very proud of the 3D acceleration.

[eobet]

Has anyone tried SolidWorks yet?

[rcardona2k]

>It's actually just dxdiag that forces a guest resize to 640x480. It's an odd duck. Real games will let you choose your guest resolution.

Yes, I can see this now. The same thing happens in Parallels. On a physical PC, the monitor can't resize so the hardware just stretches the image.

>Thanks for giving it a try! We're very proud of the 3D acceleration.

Ben -- it rocks! Good job team.

[Guddler]

Slightly odd thing, in Vista Ultimate dxdiag reports that DirectDraw Accelration and Direct3D Acceleration are both enabled but I don't get any buttons to click to allow me to do any tests. I've not used Vista much (or indeed dxdiag) so maybe this is just a quirk of Vista?

On a slightly different note, with 3D acceleration enabled, 128MB of graphics memory now reported to Vista (256 on the host) and 768MB of physical memory reported in the guest i expected to see some sign of Aero by now but i can't see anywhere to enable it at all! Oh well

[Deryni]

I turned on 3D in a Vista Ultimate VM, upgraded the Tools, and then asked Vista to re-rate my machine. That moved my two graphics ratings from 1.0 and 1.0 to 1.9 and 1.0. Vista claims that you need at least a 3.0 in the first rating before it will let you turn on Aero. Perhaps it's because the 3D is only DirectX 8.1, and not 9 or 10.

[Guddler]

I'm not overly fussed about Aero to be honest. The VM is sluggish at the moment as it is, I think with Aero it would probably be terrible.

I am interested to see if 3D is really working though. I'll try and install something 3D over the weekend and see what Vista makes of it!

[bgertzfield]

Yes, 3D support in VMware Fssion is DirectX 8.1 only for now. Vista Aero requires DirectX 9. But this is just the beginning, naturally.

[rcardona2k]

>dxdiag reports that DirectDraw Acceleration and Direct3D Acceleration are both enabled but I don't get any buttons to click to allow me to do any tests.

I think this is the way it was for me before beta 2. Interestingly in XP the dxdiag test button cycles through DirectX 7, 8, then 9 interfaces. 7 and 8 obviously work, in DirectX 9, the spinning cube test highly blinks the background with the cube painted as a grey object. The rendering is flawed but it does not crash.

It's definitely a good start but for others a disappointment for DirectX 10 in Vista or DirectX 9 for Windows Media Player. The latter comment coming from a Parallels forum posting.

[Pat_Lee]

Our goal in bringing experimental DirectX 8.1 3D to the Mac is to show that gaming in a virtual machine is possible today.

I also understand that there is huge desire for DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 and trust me that it is something I definitely keep in mind as we plan future products.

Pat

[rcardona2k]

Thanks Pat - as indicated - I'm very pleased with Fusion. Others may not be and will express their opinions here.

Your comments obviously provide official answers from VMware - a complaint during beta 1. (Missing VMware icon aside).

[Guddler]

Yes, 3D support in VMware Fssion is DirectX 8.1 only

for now. Vista Aero requires DirectX 9. But this is

just the beginning, naturally.

Ahhh, well there we are! I didn't know that Aero was dependent on a particular version of DX. That explains that then - thank you

And yes, 3D or not 3D, I'm loving the product so far for those fairly infrequent times that i DO need to resort to windows.

OT to this thread but something i find particularly useful is the ability to drag and drop things between the guest and host. When i fired up a guest running in server 1.0 the other week i missed that a lot!

[egas]

SolidWorks works even without accelerated 3D graphics.

[Stevamundo]

So I got my 3D Acceleration checked. Where's a good place on the web to experience 3D?

[rcardona2k]

>Where's a good place on the web to experience 3D?

You don't need to leave the comfy confines of your VM to experience 3D. Just go to Start > Run... type "dxdiag" in the open box and hit OK. When dxdiag comes up, click on the Display tab followed by the "Test Direct3D" button. That's how I captured the spinning cube above.