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nitro_jawt
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Full Screen STILL blurry in Fusion 12

Hi, I've posted about the full screen blur issues with Fusion 11 previously, but I've finally upgraded to Fusion 12, and unfortunately the issue is still there 😞

I'm using Fusion 12 on my 2019 16in MacBook Pro (Catalina 10.15.7), connected to my external 3840x1600 ultrawide monitor. The VM I'm testing with mainly is Windows 10 (1909 currently), with updated hardware version and VMware Tools. Scaling in Windows is always set at 100%, MacOS runs at native 3840x1600 with no scaling.

When a VM console is in Windowed mode, it is crisp (see reply for screenshot), but as soon as you go fullscreen the rendering becomes blurry - see attached screenshot.

I more often actually use Fusion a remote console for vSphere VMs, and they all exhibit the same behaviour, regardless of the OS.

This issue was persistent through all the versions of Fusion 11 that I'd previously used as well - so it's not new to Fusion 12.

7 Replies
nitro_jawt
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Here's the Windowed mode screenshot to demonstrate the difference. 

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zhus
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

From the screenshot, it seems your VM doesn't enable the Retina display support. If there is any Retina display in use, please make sure things below:

1. The vmtools are installed properly

2. Check the Settings -> Display, make sure the checkboxes "Use full resolution for Retina display" and "Automatically adjust user interface size in the virtual machine" are checked. The comboboxes in "Virtual Machine Resolution" section are "Use Fusion Display Preferences"

3. Open VMware Fusion -> Preferences -> Display. Both of the comboboxes are "Resize the virtual machine ..." 

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nitro_jawt
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

There is no Retina display in use most of the time - only the external monitor which it NOT retina. This is all on only on the external monitor.

VMware Tools are installed and up to date, and the other settings are as you suggested. When the VM is in Windowed mode, it's perfect - it's just in fullscreen it messes up the rendering. 

 

Honestly, I think Fusion just sees 3840 horizontal resolution and assumes it must be retina, so turns on scaling somewhere in the back end....

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nitro_jawt
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've now upgraded to Big Sur as well - same issue still persists. In windowed mode VMs are crisp, but switch to full screen and even though the VM resolution switches to match the full screen native resolution, it still renders with a noticeable blurriness. 

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nitro_jawt
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Upgraded to Fusion 12.1 today, and re-checked all the settings - no change, still blurry in full screen.

Would be nice if VMware at least acknowledged the issue...

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hubekpeter
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here, running catalina 10.15.7 with Fusion 12.1.0. The only workaround is to switch the Full Screen mode to "Center the virtual machine in the screen" and set the correct resolution inside the VM manually. Fusion 11&12 are affected by this bug. 

nitro_jawt
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the suggestion! Interestingly, The VMware SVGA adapter doesn't reveal the native resolution of my monitor, so I can't select it in Windows. However it does expose the non-UW resolution 2560x1600. If I select that, it fills the vertical height with no blurring, I just get black bars on the sides of the screen (as expected at that res).

 

Perhaps part of the problem is just that VMware doesn't include more recent UW resolutions in it's SVGA driver?

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