Workstation 9 - No 3D Acceleration to Guest - Ubuntu 12.04 Host - Intel Video

[jfath]

Much of this has been covered in a similar topic, but the title of that topic specifies an Nvidia card, so I wanted to point out the problem also occurs with Intel video.

My system is Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit running on an Intel i7-3770 processor and using the processor's built-in video (HD 4000).  When running Workstation 8.04 on the same system, a Windows 7 guest allows acceleration with no problem.  Aero, dxdiag, and Windows Experience benchmark all work properly.  Once the system has been upgraded to Workstation 9.0.1, attempting to start a Windows 7 guest with acceleration enabled gives an acceleration disabled warning and this line in the log:

Disabling 3D on this host due to presence of Mesa DRI driver.  Set mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = TRUE to override

Setting mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers to true keeps the warning from occuring, but the guest crashes during Windows boot.

It seems this is a known problem.  There are various discussions about using a patched and updated Intel Xorg driver, but I've not seen any confirmation of a method that definitely works to allow 3D acceleration on a Linux host with Intel video.

Can anyone confirm that VMware knows about this problem?  Does anyone have a confirmed successful work-around (short of downgrading to WS8)?

Jerry

[AlanaA]

I don't have a solution for you but I can tell you what technical support told me during my 30 day support period. According to support, the engineers told him that the Mesa drivers for Intel graphics are not supported on Workstation 9. They are also not supported on Workstation 8 even though there are workarounds to get them to work on 8. 3D for guests on Linux hosts is only supported on non-hybrid NVIDIA graphics or on Optimus systems that can disable the Intel graphics in the BIOS. I have tested on an NVIDIA only PC and 3D does work out of the box with the proprietary drivers.

So it does seem that VMware is aware of this. They suggested that I file a feature request here: http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/feature.html and that requests supposedly go directly to their engineering team. So you could file a request and also maybe bump this thread occasionally to get others to file requests too. Hopefully, they'll work with the Mesa developers to find a solution.

[jfath]

Thanks, AlanaA.

I suppose it's good to know that VMware is aware of the problem, but calling it a feature request seems disingenuous at best.

They advertise Workstation 9 as having:

..."faster 3D graphics and support for DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 3D graphics in a Windows and now Linux virtual machine"...

I certainly didn't read anything in the sales literature that said 3D support was limited to NVIDIA cards on a Linux host.  Did I miss it, or were they hoping to reap the upgrade fee for what should have been a minor update BEFORE we figured out that it was actually a downgrade for those of us without the proper (but unspecified) video hardware?

Telling us an advertised feature doesn't work, then suggesting we file a feature request in order to obtain the originally advertised functionality is a poor way to do business in my opinion.

[AlanaA]

Ya, it's unfortunate that VMware isn't above misleading marketing but I guess that's just how most/all companies do things. Their Workstation page doesn't really mention the host. They probably have some sort of blurb somewhere that would let them get away with it. Something like the Mesa drivers not fully supporting OpenGL and some required OpenGL feature is missing for 3D support.

The feature request was more of a way to give some feedback to the engineering team in addition to the forums. Fixing bugs could be considered a feature request, I guess .

There's probably a small percentage of virtualization users who need/want 3D on a Linux host running on Intel graphics. At least compared to the NVIDIA thread. So maybe VMware isn't putting a whole lot of effort into it.

[jfath]

Does anyone know if this has been addressed in Workstation 10?  Is 3D acceleration of a Windows guest possible on a Linux host system with Intel graphics?

[AlanaA]

On my Ivy Bridge (HD4000) based notebook using Workstation 9.0.2 with an x86-64 Ubuntu 12.04.3 host on the 3.5 kernel based LTS enablement stack (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack) and an x86-64 Windows 7 Pro guest, 3D seems to work. I added the mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE" setting in the .vmx file, enabled 3D acceleration for the guest and booted. I ignored the warning about the configuration may cause problems.

I was able to successfully finish the Windows Experience Index test and enable Aero. Before, that would crash the guest. Aero looks to be working fine. There's less CPU overhead on the host when doing graphic and full screen video tasks. I didn't do any other 3D tests since I'm only concerned about hardware acceleration of the OS UI.

Hopefully, there aren't any issues that crop up later.

Message was edited by: AlanaA Added Workstation version.

[AlanaA]

Using Workstation 10.0.1, the Mesa drivers are still blacklisted but allowing them in the .vmx file still works fine. At least from what I can tell. Hopefully, things aren't breaking in the background.

[imedos]

Unfortunately I have the same problem with WS10 on Debian 7 host and Intel graphics.

glxinfo and glxgears are fine, but WS10 Windows guest complains no 3d accel.

[Charles]

Same here.  Tested glxgears in a Linux VM  and got 5000 fps w/ the override vs. 600 fps without. Haven't tested anything more demanding yet.