VMware 16.2.1: Display 3D acceleration not working, Windows 10 Guest runs choppy

[UlrichMeier]

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (mks)
ISBRendererComm: Lost connection to mksSandbox (2878)
A log file is available in "/data/srv/vm/Win10_pro_L3/vmware.log".
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on Ubuntu 21.10, Lenovo X1 Yoga 6th Gen, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB HD

If 3d accel is disabled, it works.

However - the Windows 10 guest is choppy.

[banackm]

It's possible a host graphics driver update will fix the problem for some users, and as noted switching X11<->Wayland seems to also fix it. on some configurations.  But I would expect this generally needs a patch from the VMware side.

Small benchmarks with very high frame-rates (such as glxgears/vkcube) are going to be the most impacted by the Vulkan->X11 presentation work-around.  Apps with lower frame-rates and higher 3D workloads should be less impacted.

[zeljan1]

Hi,

This helped me 🙂 Now VMWare 16.2.1 is booting guest VMs. LinuxMint 20.2 64bit

[fyrstormer]

To clarify for Linux noobs like me:

If you don't have a ~/.vmware/config file, create one and VMware Player will find it and use the new settings you've added to it:

mks.enableX11Presentation=TRUE
mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE

Worked like a charm for me, once I figured out I needed to create a new file that didn't already exist. I'm not sure why my VMware Player install didn't have a config file already since it seems like everyone else in this thread already had one. But whatever, at least it works.

[wyxchari]

I am another one who does not work after updating VMWare Workstarion 15.5.7 to 16.2.1. Not even putting those 2 commands with their quotes in the files (machine.vmx) or in (C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation\config.ini). The only way it works is to disable "Display 3D acceleration". No version 16 works and I have tried all 16.0.0-16.2.1. I have returned to 15.5.7 where 3D does work. I prefer an older VMWare with 3D to an updated one without 3D. Tested on HP ProBook 6570b, Intel Core i5-3210M, Intel HD Graphics 4000 DirectX 11.0 WDDM 1.3, VMWare Tools 11.1.5-11.3.5. When VMWare version 17 comes out I will upgrade to 16. VMWare is getting as complex as Windows. Better to go backwards than not be a secret "beta" tester of VMWare.

[timatgca]

On this build, the error occurs on Fedora Wayland gnome session on a tigerlake CPU with integrated graphics.

changing to x11 presentation works around the error.

Don't seem to have the problem running under an xorg session. I have an Ubuntu host running under xorg where this problem has never occurred (with AMD graphics).

[timatgca]

@wyxchari   this bug is for linux hosts. You appear to be running on Windows.

[fyrstormer]

After a little experimentation, I determined that I only need to put

mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE

into the config file. The other command

mks.enableX11Presentation=TRUE

is not necessary, and excluding it produces slightly better 3D performance for reasons I'm not qualified to speculate about.

[jdcanache]

Using the steps described by @Parazythum but in this order it worked for me

1-install nvidia proprietary drivers

2-Install the vulkan tools
apt install vulkan-tools

3-edit the linux user .profile file and add the following at the end

export VK_ICD_FILENAMES="/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json"

4-Edit the virtual machine .mvx file and add to the end using double quotes

mks.enableX11Presentation="FALSE"
mks.enableVulkanPresentation="TRUE"

if the virtual machine is encrypted you have to remove the tpm and decrypt, edit the vmx file save the changes, install the tpm again and encrypt

5-reboot the host

6-it is validated that everything works fine by executing vkcube in the terminal.

[timatgca]

Based on changelogs, I don't thin this was fixed in 16.2.3 ... ?

[bravo88]

for the acceleration related issue the only solution for me was to make the vulkan be forced to support my card

mks.vk.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE"
i also added this but not sure if the below is necessary

mks.forceDiscreteGPU = "TRUE"
now i have great acceleration 16.2.3

[ricpf]

I would never have ever guessed vulkan would be used in here. Thank you saint

[peter6464]

CollegiateComp,

You were spot on. I couldn't figure out what had happened that stopped vmware 3d acceleration working on my system. But it was precisely as you say. 2 years ago I ran prime-select nvidia where as prior it had been on-demand. You suggestion to add that json line to ~/.profile fixed the issue for me too (also switching back to on-demand also fixed the issue, unfortunately I need to have nvidia as my default though). Thanks for taking the time to add this to the conversation as I never would have figured out what I had done to break it otherwise!