Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) Not Working with Fusion 5

[Hawk7]

I am having a problem running SWTOR in VMware Fusion 5.0.3 (1040386). I am able to start SWTOR fine; I get the game to run as it's fully patched and up-to-date, login to it successfully, and hit Play. At that point the game goes full screen, and turns my screen completely black. I know it is running since after a few seconds I hear the game music playing, and the mouse pointer hovers over the black screen with the proper SWTOR-style pointing icon used in the game (that mouse pointer is all I can see). I can Alt-Tab between the game (with black screen) and other programs, which all look normal. So clearly there is some sort of graphics issue preventing proper display of this game. This seems to be a similar problem to one experienced by others, from reading other posts in these forums. A number of people seem to have gotten this to work so I'm asking the community (and VMware) for help.

I've tried matching environment variables listed in this forum post to no avail; it references Fusion 4 instead of Fusion 5 which is what I am using, so I'm not sure if any parameters might be different in 5.x:

Paying 1000$ for anyone that can get SWTOR working on VMWare Workstation

My host environment is as follows:

• MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2012
• Processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
• Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
• Software: OS X 10.8.3

As noted above, I am running VMware Fusion 5.0.3 (1040386). I have allocated 2 processor cores to the VM, along with 4096 MB of memory.

My guest OS environment is as follos:

• Windows 7 x64, Service Pack 1
• From dxdiag:
  • Current Display Mode: 1147 x 926 (32 bit) (60Hz)
  • Device Name: VMware SVGA 3D
  • Driver Version: 7.14.1.1211
  • WHQL Logo'd: Yes
  • DDI Version: 9Ex
  • Driver Model: WDDM 1.0

My original, SWTOR client_settings.ini default values are as follows (SWTOR must have changed since that forum post above was made in 2012, as there are some new values listed, but some listed in the forum post are missing). With this setting, I get a black screen, flickering Windows-style mouse pointer, and no music:

[Renderer]

Buckets = 2

D3DFullScreen = true

doShadows = false

GraphicsDeviceId = 1029

GraphicsQuality = 2

Height = 1920

NativeHeight = 1920

NativeWidth = 2560

PerfTestFlags = 17710850

PlantDensity = 50

SpeedTreeDistanceScale = 1.25

TextureAnisotropy = 16

Width = 2560

I changed that client_settings.ini file to the following values, in an attempt to get my environment similar to the successful one from the post above. With these settings, I get the black screen with game music and steady (non-flickering) SWTOR-style mouse pointer:

[Renderer]

Buckets = 2

D3DFullScreen = true

EnableBloom = false

doShadows = false

GraphicsDeviceId = 1029

GraphicsQuality = 1

Height = 767

NativeHeight = 768

NativeWidth = 1024

PerfTestFlags = 17710850

PlantDensity = 50

RefreshRate = 60

TextureQuality = 1

UseMinSpecShaders = true

VerticalSyncState = true

SpeedTreeDistanceScale = 1.25

TextureAnisotropy = 4

Width = 1096

CodeVersionChanged = true

LastCodeVersionRun = 1

NewBucket = 2

WindowX = 0

WindowY = 0

[Game]

MoviesFolder = ..\..\Movies

SwtorRegKey = SOFTWARE\BioWare\Star Wars - The Old Republic

Finally, here are the contents of my VMX file inside my virtual machines folder:

.encoding = "UTF-8"

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "9"

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"

memsize = "4096"

mem.hotadd = "TRUE"

scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0:0.fileName = "Virtual Disk.vmdk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "/Users/<username>/<Windows 7 ISO file>"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

ethernet0.connectionType = "nat"

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

ethernet0.linkStatePropagation.enable = "FALSE"

usb.present = "TRUE"

ehci.present = "TRUE"

ehci.pciSlotNumber = "35"

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.virtualDev = "hdaudio"

sound.fileName = "-1"

sound.autodetect = "TRUE"

mks.enable3d = "TRUE"

serial0.present = "TRUE"

serial0.fileType = "thinprint"

pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"

pciBridge4.present = "TRUE"

pciBridge4.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"

pciBridge4.functions = "8"

pciBridge5.present = "TRUE"

pciBridge5.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"

pciBridge5.functions = "8"

pciBridge6.present = "TRUE"

pciBridge6.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"

pciBridge6.functions = "8"

pciBridge7.present = "TRUE"

pciBridge7.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"

pciBridge7.functions = "8"

vmci0.present = "TRUE"

hpet0.present = "TRUE"

usb.vbluetooth.startConnected = "TRUE"

tools.syncTime = "TRUE"

displayName = "Windows 7 64-bit"

guestOS = "windows7-64"

nvram = "Windows 7 64-bit.nvram"

virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"

proxyApps.publishToGuest = "TRUE"

tools.upgrade.policy = "upgradeAtPowerCycle"

powerType.powerOff = "soft"

powerType.powerOn = "soft"

powerType.suspend = "soft"

powerType.reset = "soft"

extendedConfigFile = "Windows 7 64-bit.vmxf"

numvcpus = "2"

cpuid.coresPerSocket = "2"

ethernet0.vnet = "vmnet2"

ethernet0.bsdName = "en3"

ethernet0.displayName = "Thunderbolt Ethernet"

floppy0.present = "FALSE"

scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "160"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "<my MAC address>"

ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "33"

usb.pciSlotNumber = "32"

sound.pciSlotNumber = "34"

vmci0.id = "-1667266921"

vmci0.pciSlotNumber = "36"

uuid.location = "56 4d 60 ad 1f f1 eb ec-e2 e8 e6 8b 9c 9f 86 97"

uuid.bios = "56 4d 60 ad 1f f1 eb ec-e2 e8 e6 8b 9c 9f 86 97"

cleanShutdown = "TRUE"

replay.supported = "FALSE"

replay.filename = ""

scsi0:0.redo = ""

pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"

pciBridge4.pciSlotNumber = "21"

pciBridge5.pciSlotNumber = "22"

pciBridge6.pciSlotNumber = "23"

pciBridge7.pciSlotNumber = "24"

scsi0.sasWWID = "50 05 05 6d 1f f1 eb e0"

usb:1.present = "TRUE"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

vmotion.checkpointFBSize = "134217728"

softPowerOff = "TRUE"

usb:1.speed = "2"

usb:1.deviceType = "hub"

usb:1.port = "1"

usb:1.parent = "-1"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

ethernet0.startConnected = "TRUE"

gui.lastPoweredViewMode = "fullscreen"

hgfs.mapRootShare = "FALSE"

hgfs.linkRootShare = "FALSE"

unity.wasCapable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"

tools.remindInstall = "FALSE"

gui.viewModeAtPowerOn = "windowed"

gui.exitOnCLIHLT = "FALSE"

usb:0.present = "TRUE"

usb:0.deviceType = "hid"

usb:0.port = "0"

usb:0.parent = "-1"

[UweKubosch]

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