[BUG REPORT] Fusion 10 and the Nvidia web driver don't get along

[demigodmac]

Just upgraded to Fusion 10 and there's already an issue.

The Virtual machine hangs at a black screen for a minute and then shuts down after the Windows 10 logo finishes loading but before the login screen.

Turning off graphics acceleration allows the VM to boot.

Note - This same issue happened 2 years ago with Fusion 8:

Re: Fusion 8.0 conflicts with Nvidia web driver for Mac

VMWare and Nvidia were able to work together and fix the issue.  Fusion and the Nvidia web driver worked perfectly ever since, but the issue has returned with 10.

Please fix it again!

FWIW, my setup is:

MacPro5,1

macOS Sierra 10.12.6

Fusion 10.0.1

Windows 10 x64 (fully up to date) - Upgraded from Hardware version 12 to 14

Nvidia web driver 378.05.05.25f01

GeForce Titan X (Maxwell)

[RickShu]

Hi demigodmac,

Would you please inform about what is your locale setting in your MacPro? Is it Non-English language?

Regards,

-Rick

[iFrodo75]

RickShu​

He is running Fusion 10.0.1 which contains the non-english locale Metal renderer fix.

Apparently his issue was because of Fusion 8's VMWare Tools and is fixed with Fusion 10's VMWare Tools. I can personally confirm that it run fine, with Metal renderer and NVidia Web drivers on Fusion 10.0.1 (French locale) with latest VMWare Tools.

[demigodmac]

Spoke too soon when I thought it was fixed.  I thought I'd turned the acceleration back on but it wasn't.  Issue remains if acceleration is on.

My system is set on English US.

EDIT:

I took a video of what happens.  Hope this helps!

At 1:44 I disable 3D acceleration and it works.

[wila]

Hi,

Try to uninstall VMware Tools, reboot your guest and then re-install VMware Tools.

I suspect that your guest still has an older VGA driver and there's a known issue with that causing the screen to blackout on latest Windows 10.

--

Wil

[demigodmac]

Tried this, but no change.

[demigodmac]

Quick update... I opened a support ticket and sent VMWare a diagnostic package.  They found that the bug is in the Nvidia web driver, like last time.  The built-in OS X Nvidia driver doesn't have the issue, so switching to that driver is a suggested workaround.  Unfortunately for me, my graphics card is too new and is not compatible with the OS X driver, so I cannot use the Metal renderer until Nvidia fixes their driver.  Thankfully VMWare will reach out to them and let them know about the bug.

Another workaround: VMWare Support suggested adding this line to the .vmx file to revert to the older OpenGL renderer (it works):

mks.enableMTLRenderer = "0"