Enabling 3D acceleration in macOS 11 (Big Sur) broke my VM because my VM was encrypted

[jjbehrensudemy]

I followed the instructions here (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/81657) to enable GPU acceleration. However, I think those instructions assume your VM isn't encrypted. I don't think that editing a .vxd file works properly if your VM is encrypted because most of the settings aren't "visible". It didn't work. In fact, it ended up making the resolution go down to 1024x768. Trying to fix the issue, I eventually wrecked my whole VM. I really think the issue is that you shouldn't directly edit the .vxd of an encrypted VM.

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You are correct that you cannot manually edit an encrypted VM configuration file as the configuration file is completely encrypted as well.

I'm also not surprised that it wrecked your VM (hopefully you had a backup).

In the past the KB articles had a way to suggest an edit, I'm not seeing that, but perhaps after you click "Did the article help you. Yes/No".
FWIW, I have updated my blog post to include a warning.

Re. your twitter post. "I still have issues with Chrome 3D" .. yes, not entirely unexpected either as this is one of those things where the 3D support in Windows VM's isn't sufficient either.

--
Wil