Hi!
I'm having a display problem in Player with a Windows Server 2012 R2 guest and Windows 8.1 host. This problem doesn't appear with Windows 7 guests on the same host. The problem affects windowed, full-screen and Unity modes.
It looks like some bit blit and fill operations performed by the guest don't fully update the frame buffer as displayed. For instance, if a window is repositioned, the window's drag frame moves, but significant portions of the window are not drawn in the new location, and the window is not erased from the old location. Moving the mouse over controls in the new location redraws them correctly in certain cases such as buttons. A redraw of the whole screen can be forced by tapping the Windows key twice (popping up and then removing the Start page), after which the display is correct.
A screen capture inside the guest appears correct, but a screen capture on the host demonstrates the problem. Here is an example, captured from the host, where Control Panel has been moved from top-right to bottom-left:
Note the blit of the window client area to the new location is missing large blocks along the top and left of the window in its new position, and the non-client is not transferred at all. (The frame that appears around it is the drag frame, which would normally be deleted after the move.) To be clear, this is not a temporary state; the capture was taken after releasing the mouse button and giving the system time to settle, and the display remained fixed as shown in this capture.
There are other display problems as well. Sometimes there is inconsistent highlighting of selected text in applications. In a MINGW64 console, text being typed in does not appear until Enter is pressed, and sometimes no program output is shown except for the cursor position change, until forcing an update by tapping the Windows key twice. Some applications are barely usable due to these update failures.
There are also some effects on the Fisher-Price (Metro) interface. For instance, the Start page is initially not populated, until you move the mouse over the items. In some cases, static content in the "charm" interfaces desn't appear at all even after mouse-over, and there is no way to display it, because tapping the Windows key will as usual just remove the interface totally.
The problem manifests differently in Unity mode. In that case, the window client area is correct after a reposition, but the non-client area (title bar, window frame, etc.) may appear garbled by frame buffer contents from other parts of the VM's display, and depends heavily on exactly how the window is moved.
I have tried with "Accelerate 3D graphics" turned off in the VM settings, and this does not help.
(In fact, I can't even try it *with* 3D acceleration, because Player tells me acceleration is unavailable, although there *is* a suitable chipset. This could be related to this being a notebook which has two graphics chipsets, an nVidia for performance applications and an Intel for lower power consumption. The system typically uses the Intel, and switches to the nVidia for specific applications. I've tried getting the system to use the nVidia chipset for Player, but I'm not 100% sure that actually worked. If Player itself could report on what chipset it sees, this would help.)
I have tried adding the following to the .vmx file, and it made no difference:
mks.enableDX11Renderer = "FALSE"
mks.enableSoftwareRenderer = "TRUE"
The version of Player is 16.2.2 build-19200509. VMware Tools is installed in the guest, version 11.3.5 build-18557794.
The graphics devices are an Intel HD Graphics 4600 and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M as a render-only device. The graphics drivers installed for both were recently downloaded from Dell's support site. The DirectX version is 11.
The guest's display device is listed as "VMware SVGA 3D" and the driver version is 8.17.3.5, dated 2021-07-06. The guest OS says "This device is working properly."
I can provide more detailed DxDiag dumps, etc., if needed.
Any suggestions appreciated.