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blackpuma
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Reduced palette problem

Previously I posted about bad video quality. I've played with this some to get some additional information. Does anybody have additional ideas, or should I file a bug?

The problem looks to be a reduced palette problem, and is pervasive on my MacBook Pro. Every single VM I've run presents the same problem, no exceptions.

\* I upgraded the client tools on the VMs.

\* The client OSes report full colour depth.

\* This is the same for both the MacBook Pro's laptop display and the attached 30" Apple Cinema display.

These VMs look perfectly fine when running with Workstation 5.5.3 with both Linux and WinXP as the host OS. The Linux workstation is a separate machine, but the WinXP host is this same MacBook Po booted to XP via BootCamp.

Some partial screenshots obtained via Grabber follow:

Linux (Gnome) - the banding should be a smooth gradient of blue.

http://www.ifm-services.com/tmp/colour-palette-problem-jpegs/linux.jpg

WinXP - very pronounced problem noticable on blue areas, both in the menu and in the background. Looks like bands and splotches.

http://www.ifm-services.com/tmp/colour-palette-problem-jpegs/win-xp.jpg

Windows 2000, desert theme - one can see the problem in the window bar.

http://www.ifm-services.com/tmp/colour-palette-problem-jpegs/win-2k-desert-theme.jpg

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HPReg
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It is hard to tell what is a VMware bug and what is a jpeg artifact in your screenshots Smiley Happy Consider using non-lossy image formats (png is a good option) when reporting this kind of issues.

Anyway, it clearly seems there is an issue in the Linux screenshot.

It is weird. I don't think we have seen this before. I wonder if that is related to your secondary Cinema display, because we have done no testing with that device. Would you mind trying with the Cinema display disconnected (and maybe a Mac OS reboot for good measure)?

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HPReg
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It is hard to tell what is a VMware bug and what is a jpeg artifact in your screenshots Smiley Happy Consider using non-lossy image formats (png is a good option) when reporting this kind of issues.

Anyway, it clearly seems there is an issue in the Linux screenshot.

It is weird. I don't think we have seen this before. I wonder if that is related to your secondary Cinema display, because we have done no testing with that device. Would you mind trying with the Cinema display disconnected (and maybe a Mac OS reboot for good measure)?

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blackpuma
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Consider using

non-lossy image formats (png is a good option) when

reporting this kind of issues.

I didn't think about it since the difference (visually) is not discernable, but point well taken.

Here are the original TIFFs from Grabber:

http://www.ifm-services.com/tmp/colour-palette-problem.tar.gz

I wonder if that is related to your secondary Cinema

display,

A reasonable question. I'll do some testing right now.

. . . . . . .

OK. After doing some more testing ...

The problem does[/b] appear to be the secondary display. Here's what I did:

1) Power off MacBook Pro.

2) Disconnect secondary display.

3) Boot.

\* The three VMs, (Linux, WinXP, Win2k) were all paused.

\* I started each of them in turn.

1) Win2k showed the gradients correctly immediately.

1a) Full screen seemed OK, also.

2) WinXP showed the gradients correctly immediately.

2a) Full screen seemed OK, also.

3) The Linux display showed the same problem.

3a) Switching to full screen caused the palette to complete freak out.

3b) Restarted Linux.

3c) Colours look fine.

3d) Switching to full screen looks fine also.

As a further test I plugged in the 30" display while OS X was running, with the Linux VM open.

\* The display remained correct.

\* I resumed the WinXP VM, and it showed the gradient artefacts.

\* Suspended and resumed the Linux VM, and it showed the gradient artefacts again.

My conclusion is that there is a distinct problem using the secondary display[/b].

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blackpuma
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Because this looks like a distinct problem, I've filed it as a bug.

Thank you for filing support request 346601.

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blackpuma
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As a final (ha ha) note, the banding and splotching is not a problem for most cases.

I do some image manipulation, however, and the banding and splotching is fatal[/b] to that effort. I absolutely cannot tell what I'm looking at.

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HPReg
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Thanks for taking the time to get to the bottom of this issue. In your support request, did you specify that the secondary display was a Cinema display, not just any other secondary display?

I have a secondary display on my iMac at work, which is not a Cinema display, and I have never seen this problem.

I just want to make sure we will order a Cinema display for the Fusion team, if only to fix this bug Smiley Happy

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blackpuma
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In your support request, did you specify

that the secondary display was a Cinema display, not

just any other secondary display?

I believe I did, but don't remember specifically. In the support request, I did include a hyperlink to this thread.

I have a secondary display on my iMac at work, which

is not a Cinema display, and I have never seen this

problem.

Another person with an iMac with a secondary monitor (CRT) mentioned that they haven't seen this problem either. It makes me wonder whether this is specific to the MacBook Pro, or perhaps the video card, or a buggy Apple video driver? I don't know.

I'll do what I can to help diagnose this.

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bgertzfield
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Hi blackpuma,

Just wanted to follow up and confirm that this was indeed a configuration problem, where you had your secondary display set to 16-bit color mode in Mac OS.

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blackpuma
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Just wanted to follow up and confirm that this was

indeed a configuration problem,

I feel like such an massive ass, but yes, it was. Smiley Sad Smiley Sad Smiley Sad I have no idea how or when the display was changed to 16-bit colour. It was not too long ago since I do image manipulation from time to time, and the 16-bit colour makes the images look like garbage. I would have noticed that right away.

DO NOTE: That the problem with full-screen mode still exists. This is aparently a separate problem. That thread is here: http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=66078

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bgertzfield
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Hi blackpuma,

Are you sure VMware Tools were installed in the VM with which you were going fullscreen?

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blackpuma
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Are you sure VMware Tools were installed in the VM

with which you were going fullscreen?

Quite sure.

Just to be certain (hey, my track record isn't stellar this week) I just picked a VM that I can play with (which happened to have an XP guest), removed the tools, rebooted, and re-installed the tools, using the "complete" option to be sure.

The mouse isn't doing the right-click craziness, but the screen is still black and unrefreshed. The system menu is opened, interestingly. Moving windows and drag-selecting cause portions to refresh. Using Command-Return bring the screen back refreshed.

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blackpuma
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Oh, and the guest VM never does expand to fill the entire screen on the 30" monitor, like it does on the 17" laptop display. It retains its original resolution.

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blackpuma
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Additional information:

A Linux guest does not exhibit the refreshing problem, though it doesn't expand to the full size of the screen. It appears to remain the same resolution also.

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