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Sound for Snow Leopard Server guest in Fusion 7 in Yosemite?

Sorry if this has been treated elsewhere. I only found some answers for Fusion 4, but I didn't get them to work for me. The problem is I seem to be unable to get sound for a new Snow Leopard Server virtual machine.

I naturally tried adding the Sound Card in the Fusion virtual machine Settings, but to no avail. Installing the EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg in the guest didn't achieve anything either. Maybe my procedure was wrong? Can anyone explain which specific steps and/or downloads should be carried out for a Snow Leopard Server guest to have sound?

Thanks.

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EMR
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Some great news, Woody and everyone. I've just recreated the Snow Leopard Server /64-bit) virtual machine from scratch with VMware Fusion 7.0.1 (having added the Sound Card virtual hardware before installing the guest OS). After installing VMware Tools and rebooting, I installed the Ensoniq 1.0.3 driver, it rebooted and, as was to be expected, no sound. Next I powered down the virtual machine machine  Next I opened the vmx file with Text Edit and removed the offending line that supposedly provided hdaudio to the guest OS; I saved the file and restarted the virtual machine, and boom! Sound works.

Thank you all.

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WoodyZ
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I have no problem using the EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg in a Mac OS X 10.6 Server Virtual Machine running under VMware Fusion 7, sound works.

This happens to be a VM originally created in VMware Fusion 4.0.1 that was upgraded to use hardware version 11 under Compatibility in the Settings and also upgraded VMware Tools although still using Ensoniq for sound.

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EMR
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Unfortunately, my Snow Leopard Server virtual machine was created yesterday from scratch using Fusion 7. Are there any specific steps I should follow? I don't think I can install Fusion 4 anywhere now. Should I downgrade the virtual hardware as much as possible and reinstall the Ensoniq driver? Should I trash my virtual machine and create it anew using the oldest virtual hardware possible?

On another front, is there any realistic hope that we'll see real graphics acceleration on OS X guests in the near future using a better solution than VMsvga2_v1.2.5_OS_10.9.pkg?

Edit: It just occurred to me that Snow Leopard Server and Snow Leopard Server (32 bits) might react differently. Should I have created a 32-bit virtual machine (as offered by the Fusion 7 VM creator) instead of a presumably 64-bit version of that operating system?

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ColoradoMarmot
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Re: 3D acceleration, not likely.  There's architectural limitations in OSX that make it nearly impossible.

I think 10.6 was 32-bit only, but it's been so long I don't remember for sure.

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WoodyZ
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dlhotka wrote: I think 10.6 was 32-bit only, but it's been so long I don't remember for sure.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server has full 64-bit support on a 64-bit processor and I doubt VMware would allow VMware Fusion to setup Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server as 64-bit (guestOS = "darwin10-64") if it wasn't capable.

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WoodyZ
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EMR wrote: Unfortunately, my Snow Leopard Server virtual machine was created yesterday from scratch using Fusion 7. Are there any specific steps I should follow? I don't think I can install Fusion 4 anywhere now. Should I downgrade the virtual hardware as much as possible and reinstall the Ensoniq driver? Should I trash my virtual machine and create it anew using the oldest virtual hardware possible?

Okay, under VMware Fusion 7, I did a clean build of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server 64-bit using the default where the Sound Card is not present and installed VMware Tools.  Next I shutdown and added the Sound Card, booted the Virtual Machine and installed the EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg package and rebooted.  Next I went into System Preferences > Sound and the Sounds were grayed out under Sound Effects and no device was present under Output.

So I did a diff against the .vmx configuration file from the upgraded install and the clean built install and found that is you remove the following .vmx configuration file option Sound does work then and a Output device is listed.

sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

Have a look at: Editing the .vmx file for your Fusion virtual machine (1014782)

EMR
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The answer is helpful, but I might be doing something wrong, as I still have no sound. My vmx listing for sound entries is currently as follows (after removing the entry you indicated):

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.fileName = "-1"

sound.autodetect = "TRUE"

sound.pciSlotNumber = "36"

Maybe something is missing. The settings for the Snow Leopard Server virtual machine sound card are "Connected" and the Output Device and Input Device are set to "System Default". The Snow Leopard Sound Preferences themselves don't detect any sound input or output devices. I've even removed the virtual sound card (when the virtual machine was shut down) and created it again (removing the offending line once again). Next, I reinstalled the Ensoniq driver. Same result: No Input or Output Devices. Should I create the virtual machine again from scratch, making sure it sports a virtual sound card (without the offending line) before I start installing Snow Leopard Server? Would that make any difference?

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WoodyZ
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My .vmx configuration file has the same option you've shown.  I also did another clean build adding the Sound Card and removing the previously mentioned .vmx configuration file option removed before installing Mac OS X and then installed VMware Tools and then the EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg.  Everything is working as expected.  If you're installing the VMsvga2_v1.2.5_OS_10.9.pkg package, don't... not at least until Sound is working.

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EMR
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Many thanks. I've followed your instructions verbatim for a brand-new Snow Leopard Server (non-32 bit version) virtual machine, but no joy. I'm currently trying with the 32-bit version just in case that works any better. If it doesn't I'll have to conclude that there's some unforeseen incompatibility with Yosemite (?).

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WoodyZ
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EMR wrote: If it doesn't I'll have to conclude that there's some unforeseen incompatibility with Yosemite (?).

That very well might be and JSYK  I'm using Mac OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard Server 64-bit under VMware Fusion 7 on OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion.  It shouldn't matter when you add the sound card as long as you remove the previously mentioned .vmx configuration file option and install the EnsoniqAudioPCI after adding the Sound Card.

Note: Also when editing the .vmx configuration file the Virtual Machine needs to be shutdown, not suspended and if VMware Fusion isn't closed then the focus must be elsewhere in the Virtual Machine Library then the target Virtual Machine who's .vmx configuration file being edited.

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EMR
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Thank you for all your help, Woody, but, unfortunately, it didn't work. No sound with the 32-bit version either.

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WoodyZ
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Just curious what MD5 hash do you get on the EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg package?  I get: 8c7675f76c6812021d6678dcf35f75e1

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EMR
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8c7675f76c6812021d6678dcf35f75e1. Obviously, the same.

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WoodyZ
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Okay then, since we are using different Host OSes it's looking like a OS X 10.10 Yosemite issue however until I can test or someone else can confirm it's a Host OS issue then I can't think of anything else at the moment to be of help. 

EMR
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OK. Thanks again.

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EMR
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Some great news, Woody and everyone. I've just recreated the Snow Leopard Server /64-bit) virtual machine from scratch with VMware Fusion 7.0.1 (having added the Sound Card virtual hardware before installing the guest OS). After installing VMware Tools and rebooting, I installed the Ensoniq 1.0.3 driver, it rebooted and, as was to be expected, no sound. Next I powered down the virtual machine machine  Next I opened the vmx file with Text Edit and removed the offending line that supposedly provided hdaudio to the guest OS; I saved the file and restarted the virtual machine, and boom! Sound works.

Thank you all.

VMWX100
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Thanks for the info guys. This was exactly what I was looking for. It was driving me up the wall. I didn't quite understand the order of steps in the process. I took detailed notes of my steps. I finally figured it out.

It didn't work until I installed the Mac OS X Server 10.6.8 Combined Update fwiw.

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shermanator2
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As an update, I was having the same problem with Snow Leopard server guest in Fusion 10.1.2 running in MacOS 10.13.4 (High Sierra) on a mid 2011 iMac 27".  I first tried deleting the offensive 'sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"' line in the Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard.vmx file, but that by itself had no effect. I then installed the EnsoniqAudioPCI_v1.0.3_Common_Installer.pkg and now I see "Line Out" as the only available option for sound output in the sound preferences pane in the guest OS, but that gets me sound to the built in speakers. I still cannot get sound to my external speakers, but at least I have some sound.

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