When will DirectX 11 be supported?

[MetaVRKM]

I have an application that only runs DX 11. The customer wants to run it on VMWare.

  It appears that VMWare Workstation 9 only supports up to DirectX 9C.

When does VMWare expect to support DX 11?

Is there a product roadmap? Sometime in 2013?

[continuum]

VMware never gives statements on future product features.

I would not hold my breath and tell my customer to go to plan B

[Arturbc]

In 2014 may be?

Enjoy the update on the vGPU and add that support, or at least DX10.

[Linjo]

Continuums answer still applies.

[Neverlyn]

I would love to see some DirectX 11 support too!

Since Microsoft tied the Kinect v2 down to DirectX 11, USB 3 and Windows 8.1, I can no longer do all my software development inside a VM.

Come on VMware you are hurting my workflow!

[Linjo]

I would ask Microsoft what they where thinkin when they tied Kinect v2 to an OS that very few people are using...

// Linjo

[Neverlyn]

I think their official line is that Windows 7 does not run USB 3 fast enough... :smileyangry:

But that aside... I've wanted DirectX 11 in VMware Workstation for a while. This is just another reason it should be in there!

[kalmiya]

"I would ask Microsoft what they where thinkin when they tied Kinect v2 to an OS that very few people are using..."

Probably finding a reason why people should upgrade to a newer version by not supporting some features.

There are more companies doing similar things, persuading people to get a newer version, often with lame reasons like "it's faster than the old version" ( which was the same argument given to upgrade to the previous version - seriously, a few % faster browser-performance doesn't get me exited) instead of innovating and supporting dx11 (released in 2009 ). While it's certainly non-trivial, it should have been possible to support in this timeframe. And honestly, at this point it's unlikely that DX11 is ever going to be supported - not with dx12 due for release in 2015.

Note that I have licenses for vmware (update: Fusion) 3, 4 and 5. Skipped 6 because it didn't support dx11 (nor offer anything else interesting)... and currently considering wether support for Yosemite is enough to purchase vmware 7... or if I should alternatively install bootcamp - or even install windows natively on my old machine - both options would give an actual noticeable performance improvement. The virtual machine is mainly a convenience thing, but I don't use windows that often, and occasionally doing a reboot wouldn't be soooo bad - it might actually force me to look for alternatives for the very few windows-only apps I still use

Anyway, enough of my rant - I really hope the vmware-guys will do something truly innovative for vmware 8.

[Linjo]

This thread is about VMware Workstation, it sounds like you are talking about VMware Fusion?

// Linjo

[kalmiya]

Indeed, was googling for "vmware and directx 11" it and saw a few threads (also about fusion),

ended up posting in this one but failed to notice it was about workstation.

( on the other hand I would be surprised it this software did support dx11 while fusion did not :smileygrin: ).

[DaveTheWaveSlav]

Just wanted to add my vote here:

As a software developer, I usually obtain copies of Workstation thru my employer for free.  And yes, I usually upgrade, despite the lack of compelling new features (hey, it's free).  However, when VMWare broke the Visual Studio Debugger support in Workstation 10, I decided to pass on even free upgrades for now on.  I cannot tell you how many hours I wasted after losing the ability to debug a VM.  I eventually ended up going back to version 9 to get the job done.

Another example.  Now I'm doing a lot of work in the Unreal Engine.  I can't do that because even just running the UE editor in a VM fails due to lack of DX support.

Until VMWare decides to update Direct3D support from (the ancient by today's standards) 9.0c to 12 or at least 11, I will not upgrade.  It's simply not worth it.

Get the message, VMWare.  We know it's technically challenging.  That's what customers pay for, not more marketing blaher about Windows 10 beta & motion sensor support.  We see right thru that and are underwhelmed.

[Biomehanika]

Some news here? The official VMWare Workstation website still said:

"With powerful 3D graphics and support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c"

Source: VMware Workstation Features, Multiple OS, Run Linux on Windows | United States

I´m in the same boat as others here, I does my developments in a Sandbox. However I couldn´t use a newer DirectX version ... I do not need a motion sensor as announced in a new version. If I really need THAT one I need a device to be sure its REALLY working as expected. So PLEASE bring a newer directX version!

[EdP2]

Apologies for this 'necro-post' and resurrecting an ancient thread. I have installed Windows 10 in a VMWare guest and I am increasingly meeting instances of there being a requirement to run Direct X 11 and VMWare only gives Direct X 9 support. I realise that I will not get an answer to 'when', but unless VMWare improves support in this area it will become impossible to fully utilise Windows 10 as a vm guest.

[PurpleElf]

Since today, we have DirectX 10 supported in VMWare Workstation.

[Neverlyn]

This thread is for DirectX 11... DirectX 10 was released to market way back in 2006 (9 years ago!), DirectX 11 was released to market in 2009 (6 years go!) and DirectX 12 was released this year.

Moving from DirectX 9 to DirectX 10 nine years after it's release is far from impressive.

Give me DirectX 11 or DriectX 12 then I'll have something to be excited about.

[stalek71]

It's incredible VMWare ignores people needs for such long time. DirectX11/12 layer support is a must nowadays on WORKSTATION virtualization software.

VMWare - don't be so lazy. It's time to wake up and to do something valuable for your customers.

[wila]

Hi,

I'm not disagreeing on wanting support for DX11/DX12, but AFAIK there is no other virtualisation product that has DX11 support already?

--

Wil

[PurpleElf]

Well, Hyper-V supports DirectX 11 (no surprise as it is M$ product as well), but it is Windows-only software, and doesn't have much support for running other system than Windows family and I don't have any reason to emulate DirectX if I was a Windows user.

I have heard Xen supports it too, but it requires dedicated machine to run.

VMWare is my favourite. Looking forward to DirectX 11/12 support.

[wila]

Hello PurpleElf‌,

Hyper-V supports DX11 for the parent partition.

That's MS speak for "host", as soon as you enable the hyper-V role, everything runs under that, including the host OS, your host OS becomes a VM, the so called "parent partition" a VM with special capabilities like -limited- hardware access.

Your normal hyper-V VMs can access DirectX via RemoteFX (accessing via remote desktop), while that's actually quite good, it is not running directly in the guest, you are running on the GPU of the machine that is accessing the VM. it requires Windows Server and depends on professional graphics cards.

Xen is not a type 2 hypervisor (it doesn't run on top of an OS) but a type 1 hypervisor and can present DirectX to you via a dedicated graphics card where you assign the graphics card directly to a guest via GPU passthrough. This technique is also available for VMware vSphere, but it is a very different animal from just running DirectX in your guest that's running on top of another OS.

I think at the moment Parallels is ahead on this particular area with support for DirectX 10.1 whereas VMware now is at DirectX 10.0

--

Wil

edit: It would have helped if I had read the article I linked mysef to properly understand RemoteFX and its requirements.

[kalmiya]

That indeed seems to be the case... Looks like a great opportunity to differentiate vmware from the competition.

If not for the sole reason to keep customers, because they are running into issues running the software, and can't do with it what they want.