Corrupted displays in Fusion GUI

[met24]

Hi all,

I'm running Fusion 1.1 (62573) on an Intel Core Macbook Pro with Leopard. I'm seeing some strange artefacts on Fusion's screen displays and I'm wondering if anybody else has seen them too.

The first of the attached pictures shows one of my Linux virtual machines shortly after X has started. As you can see, what should be a regular cross-hatch pattern has some strange triangle effects in it, that seem to be something to do with the size of the rectangle being drawn -- notice how there always seems to be a line from top-right to bottom-left.

At first I wondered if it was something to do with the X display drivers, but changing between different versions of the vmware module (some supplied in the tools, others supplied with the X distribution) didn't have any effect, nor did using the vesa or vga driver modules. I've also used those modules on other virtual and real machines without trouble before, so I was doubtful that they'd be the cause of the problem.

I then found that if I ran a VNC server inside the virtual machine (or used Fusion's own VNC server) and ran a VNC viewer on the host machine, the screen displayed in the VNC viewer didn't have these artefacts. That's shown on the second picture.

A further test I did was to connect to the VNC server using a viewer in another virtual machine (in this case a Windows VM) -- and that viewer showed exactly the same artefacts.

That suggests to me that there's something funny going on with the Fusion GUI that's actually displaying the screen, since the screen data inside the VM is uncorrupted.

If you want to reproduce these artefacts yourself, the attached Crosshatch.png image consists of alternating black & white pixels. If you display that (unscaled) in either a Windows or Linux virtual machine you should see what I'm talking about.

One final data point is that when the virtual machine is suspended, and Fusion does its blurring and greying of the screen image, the blurred/greyed image doesn't have the corruption artefacts.

Has anybody else observed these artefacts? If not, are you able to reproduce them using the Crosshatch image?

VMware -- if you're able to reproduce this (and ideally identify and fix what's causing the problem) that'd be brilliant!

Many thanks,

Martin

[admin]

Do you have 3D acceleration turned on in the guest's Settings? If so, try disabling it?

[met24]

Hi,

The Linux guest (the one in which I originally noticed the problems) doesn't have 3D acceleration enabled, no.

The Windows guest does -- and you get the same effects.

Cheers!

Martin

[mudaltsov]

I'm not able to reproduce this on a Macbook Pro (Core 2 Duo, GeForce 8600M GT), or on a Mac Pro (Dual Core Xeon, GeForce 7300 GT).

Fusion uses OpenGL to draw the VM's screen, so this may be caused by your specific graphics card or Apple's OpenGL drivers for it.

What exact CPU type and Graphics card do you have? You can find out by using the System Profiler from Applications/Utilities.

Also, what version and build number of VMware Tools are you running? In Windows double-click on the VMware Tools tray icon, or in Linux run /usr/bin/vmware-toolbox, and then go to the About tab.

[admin]

I'm not able to reproduce this exactly but I can get something pretty similar - instead of triangles, I get discolored rectangular areas. In my case, it seems to be correlated with repainting; e.g. if I select an area on a Ubuntu 7.10 desktop, that area remains discolored after I release the drag. If I select a desktop icon on a Windows XP desktop, the rectangular area around the icon discolors. If I select an area on a Windows XP desktop, the rectangle border discolors as I move around. Suspending and resuming does correct the display. I didn't try using a VNC client.

This is on a Core Duo MacBook, both guests have tools 62573.

[mudaltsov]

Also, it would be helpful to know exactly which version of Leopard you are running - 10.5.0 or 10.5.1?

I actually tested it on Tiger 10.4.11, so I'll check again with Leopard.

Thanks

[admin]

Sorry, forgot to mention that this is with 10.4.11; graphics card is a GMA 950; 3D acceleration is disabled. I don't see the discoloration if the background is all white. If I move the console around, the artifacts in the moved window disappear.

[met24]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the comments. etung -- it's nice to see I'm not going mad

I'm running Leopard 10.5.1, Macbook Pro 17 (Intel Core Duo at 2.16GHz) with the ATI Radeon X1600, driving the internal 1680x1050 LCD. (I believe I see the same artefacts when it's driving an external LCD monitor, I will check that when I get home this evening.)

I tried turning off 3D acceleration on the Windows guest and loading up the crosshatch image again, and I'm still seeing the problem.

Both guests are running tools version 7.6.2 build 62573.

Cheers,

Martin

[met24]

(I believe I see the same artefacts when it's driving an external LCD monitor, I will check that when I get home this evening.)

Yes, I get them when the Fusion window is on the external monitor too.

M

[mudaltsov]

Yes, this seems to be independent of any monitor settings or even the Guest OS type or Tools installation.

I suspect it has to do with the OpenGL rendering of updated screen regions, and it seems to only affect ATI and Intel video cards (not NVIDIA).

I filed an internal bug report about this, so someone from our graphics team will take a look at it.

[DSan]

Hi!

After hours surfing these forums I decided to write in this one because I also have a very strange problem and it might be related to it.

I have experiencing problems with cursor in Linux, but only in Linux. I have tried Open Suse 10.2, Fedora 6, Xubuntu 7.10 (Ubuntu in XFCE), Ubuntu 7.10 and all have the same problem under Gnome...

The is fine, but it erases part of the content that has been displayed on the screen when you move it around. It is not impossible to work with but it is annoying. Also, the small labels that appear when you place the cursor over a button have the same problem.

Windows XP is working fine. Parallels Desktop on the same machines is working fine also. I have tried every setup I have imagined in the Linux machines, even starting myself the XServer, and changing cursors and shapes and it is the same problem. It is especially noticeable when brosing the menus. I came to the problem even before I upgraded to Leopard.

My Mac is a Macbook Pro 17 inch 2.16, Core Duo 32 bits and the X1600 Radeon card, so it is the same machine that the first post have. I am starting to think it is something related to VMware Fusion and the video card, but surprisingly Parallels work fine.

I have installed, uninstalled and compiled myself VMware tools for all the systems many times and I always get the same results. The cursor erases little bits of the screen, but not exactly where it is placed, but like 100 pixels or so near, and randomly (In the proximities). I am sure is the cursor because if I manage the interface with the keyboard, everything seems fine.

I placed two images. It could not get the cursor in the picture and it is difficult to get the artifact since it disappears quickly if you move a little the mouse, and it appears in other place. Any way, I placed the cursor pointer in the desktop selected and moved it to the mouse section bellow, and I got two artifacts. One is in desltop (It is supposed to be a complete image, I mean the square) and one in the mouse bellow when I moved it again.

By the way... Could we have a better Mac support keyboard in VMWare tools in Linux... Everytime I enter I have to click the Num lock in Linux.

[DSan]

In the Version 1.1.1 (72241) all the artifacts I described in XFCE Linux and Gnome were corrected.

Thank you Vmware Fusion Team.

[met24]

Hmm. I'm still seeing the original problem after upgrading to 1.1.1 unfortunately.

All the best,

Martin

[admin]

met24, I don't think 1.1.1 addressed the crosshatch problem you reported. I don't think DSan's report was related.

[met24]

Indeed! Apologies if it sounded like I was criticising -- that wasn't the intention!

[mudaltsov · Accepted solution]

Hi Martin,

Our graphics team finally identified and fixed the issue with the crosshatch artifacts.

It turns out that texture updates to redraw the screen were always done using linear filtering mode (GL_LINEAR), which provides smoother magnification when scaling the display to a higher resolution (such as running a fullscreen game at 800x600 scaled to a 1600x1200 screen).

Fusion normally doesn't use any scaling, especially in windowed mode. However, the linear filtering mode caused the artifacts on ATI and Intel video cards even when scaling was turned off.

The solution is to use nearest neighbor filtering (GL_NEAREST) when the display is not being scaled, which is what Fusion will do automatically in the future.

The fix was discovered a bit too late to be included in the new 1.1.2 release, so until the next release, you can use a workaround.

Edit the /Users/(username)/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/preferences file with TextEdit, and add the following two lines:

mks.gl.magFilter = "0x2600"

mks.gl.minFilter = "0x2600"

This sets the texture filters to the value of GL_NEAREST, which should solve the problem.

[met24]

Hi mudaltsov,

You are a star! That tweak clears the problem up completely.

Many thanks to you and your colleagues!

All the best,

Martin