Enable 3D support for Windows guest, how?

[t1nue]

I'm kind of confused. People talk about "pass through", but this is not what I want. I would just need basic 3D support, rendered by the host.

As far as I can tell, I need to enable 3D in the video settings of the guest. When I do this, ESXi reports "No 3D support is available from the host".

The host uses a standard Intel processor with Iris plus 655 GPU. How can this not be supported?

Am I overlooking something here? ESXi is 6.7u3, Host is an Intel NUC8i5BEH.

[daphnissov]

3D graphics are only available on Windows and Linux desktop type VMs. If your VM OS was created without one of these desktop OSs, then you won't be able to enable that setting unless you manually edit the VMX file. I'll also just point out since you ask "How can this not be supported?" that your hardware isn't officially supported anyhow, so you've got to take what you can get.

[t1nue]

The guest is Windows 10, and I can enable the setting through the ESXi web console. When I select "hardware" for the "3D Renderer", then the VM doesn't start and I get the error message that I posted.

But I completely forgot that ESXi is based on Linux. I can't assume that a hardware is supported just because VMWare desktop supports it.

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

But I completely forgot that ESXi is based on Linux.

This is a common misconception. ESXi is not based on Linux at all. Read this article. As I said, the NUC platform is not supported for ESXi and the Iris graphics chip probably won't work in this case.

[t1nue]

Wow, I didn't know this! All the more reason that each and every driver has to be specifically built for ESXi.

Thanks for the link to the article.

Meanwhile I found a compatibility page, and Intel Iris 655 is indeed not on the list.

The NUC works surprisingly well, given that it is not supported. I knew this, and I knew that I have to live with some restrictions (mainly that I lose the WLAN). Looks like there is one more restriction that I did not know before...