In case it helps anyone else on older hardware:-
I have also had the same/similar error in VMWare 16 on Windows 8.1 for ages and eventually decided to silence it by turning off 3d support entirely (as far as I can see).
After hacking about trying various options I ended up with this in the .vmx for Linux Mint:-
mks.enableDX12Renderer = "FALSE"
mks.enableDX11Renderer = "FALSE"
mks.enableGLRenderer = "TRUE"
mks.enable3d = "FALSE"
I'm assuming that the line mks.enable3d = "FALSE" is the operative one in this case 
Not subtle, but the irritating message is gone and 3D accel isn't really needed for my usage.
Roops