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natv
Contributor
Contributor

Guest resolution hell on a 4k laptop display

I have a Lenovo Yoga 900, which has a 4k display. The video card is an Intel HD Graphics 520 card. The machine is running Windows 10.

I have the latest VMWare Workstation 12.x. I'm trying to run a guest VM running Windows 10.  I even tried re-installing the VMWare tools. None of the combinations of settings has worked where I can put the VM In full screen. The best I can get it is centered, using about 60% of my screen (thick black areas on both sides) and rather fuzzy. And that's in full screen, in regular view the screen is several inches long (VM is tiny in center of screen)

I've tried also changing the resolution of my laptop from 4k to a resolution of 1920x1080, and then lowered the scaling.

Inside the Win10VM, it doesn't see the higher resolutions available under the resolution display settings (I've tried forcing a max resolution of 1920x1080) . I also tried turning off custom scaling (with VMWare Workstation set to "specify monitor settings" and NO CHECK MARK on the option "Automatically adjust user interface size in the virtual machine").

The guest OS sees a maximum of 1152x864, and defaults to 1024x768 even though I tried to force the above 1920x1080.

Maybe there's magic combination of settings but I haven't found it.

Is my system not supported? I just can't understand why this is so difficult to get working.

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5 Replies
natv
Contributor
Contributor

Just to update, I also tested this on another laptop I have, which is a bit of an older model but also has a 4k display, and I'm having the same issue  (Lenovo Y50).

So does anyone have a 4k laptop and is able to get their guest VMs displaying properly?

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suka09
Contributor
Contributor

@natv I have the same issue and have been performing exhaustive searches for a resolution or workaround. I hope someone from VMware joins and offers us support. I have a Dell XPS 15 with a 4K screen and VMware Workstation does not render properly. I have VMware Tools installed.

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TracyHuang
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the posting!

We cannot reproduce the issue locally with Intel HD530 GPU. So I cannot tell what's the issue you hit with 4k display. May you please provide more information so that can help us investigate:

1. Which WS version you installed? 12.5 or 12.1.1?

2. Have you upgraded the GPU driver to latest? What's the current driver version on Host?

3. Does the autofit works on guest? When you setting from menu View -> Autosize -> Autofit Guest/Autofit windows

4. Would you please collect logs by below steps:

1) In guest OS, run notepad.exe as administrator.
Edit file %PROGRAMDATA%\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf (create an empty file if it does not exist), set logging level as below:

[logging]
log = true

# Enable tools service logging to a file.
vmtoolsd.level = debug
vmtoolsd.handler = file
vmtoolsd.data = c:/tmp/vmtoolsd.log

# Enable 'vmsvc' service logging to a file.
vmsvc.level = debug
vmsvc.handler = file
vmsvc.data = c:/tmp/vmsvc.log

# Enable VMwareResolutionSet.exe logging to a file.
vmresset.level = debug
vmresset.handler = file+
vmresset.data = c:/tmp/vmresset.log

# Enable new "vmusr" service logging to a file.
vmusr.level = debug
vmusr.handler = file
vmusr.data = c:/tmp/vmusr.${USER}.log

# Set the following configuration if you want to collect the logs for vmware-toolbox-cmd utility
toolboxcmd.level = debug
toolboxcmd.handler = file
toolboxcmd.data = c:/tmp/vmtoolboxcmd.log

# Enable old VMwareUser/vmware-user logging to file.
log.file = c:/tmp/vmtools.log

Create C:\tmp directory if it does not exist. Then reboot guest OS to ensure above settings take effect.

2) Do the operations to reproduce the full screen issues, and then collect all logs shows in C:\tmp

3) Collect the VMware.log and UI log (From menu Help -> About Workstation 12 Pro you can get the location info).

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henkus123
Contributor
Contributor

I also have many performance issues with  my 4k Dell XPS 15 9550. If i downscale my vm's (stretch guest) to 1080p they work fine. When I use "autofit guest" and my guest goes to the 4k resolution everything goes laggy. I hope VMware comes to a point that they will really support 4k and not just the resolution Smiley Happy.

I use vmware daily and sometimes only work in my vm's for security reasons (less malware to host chances).

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suka09
Contributor
Contributor

TracyHuang

I emailed this information to you but never heard back. Please let me know if I should resend it to you via email.

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