Fix / Ideas for Display Corruption under Windows 10 with Fusion 8.5?

[GeoffCostello]

I have Fusion 8.5 on a Retina MacBook 13 and also on a Mac Mini with 2 x 1920 x 1200 monitors.  Parts of the display (generally text) blur with checkerboard patterns on both computers, especially in the Edge Browser.  I particularly affects small text being typed (such as this text) but can also affect pure display text.  In most cases moving the mouse over the text will display it correctly, but for some text, it stays unreadable.  The corrupted screen can be copied using Windows Screen Print and the corrupted image shows..

It has become a lot worse on my MacBook since I changed the resolution for Windows to be Retina - making me think it may be graphics memory or similar?

Anyone with ideas / similar experience or fixes would be much appreciated.

[GeoffCostello]

A few more bits of information to help with ideas:

• The issue is linked to the 3D Graphics Acceleration feature, and disappears when I turn that setting off.
• Also it is worst in the Windows Edge browser - where it can be consistently reproduced over and over.
• It can be captured with windows screen shots (I have put one in from the VMware.com site using the Edge browser.
• The corruption happens in both 'full screen' and 'single window' modes on the same pages.

I have raised a support request for this as it is on two different Macs and is so very easy to reproduce.

[RickShu]

Hi GeoffCostello,

To analyse your problem we need some details as below:

1) Did you install VMware Tools in your Windows 10 VM?

2) In full screen mode, if the blur text occurs, what is the exact resolution in your Windows 10 VM?  (please right click mouse in windows desktop, then click 'Display Settings-->Advanced display settings' to see the current resolution)

3) Is it reproducible when non or only one external monitor connected to the Host?

4) Is it reproducible when your change the options in 'Scale high resolution' to Unity Only? (Virtual Machine-->Settings-->Display-->Use full resolution for Retina display)

Any problems please let me know.

Regards,

-Rick

[GeoffCostello]

Rick,

Thanks for your message.  The answers are:

1)      VMware Tools – The latest version of VMware tools is installed in the Windows 10 VM on both Macs.  I have uninstalled and then reinstalled VMware tools and the problem sill persists.

2)      Resolution in Full Screen Mode – My windows resolution on the MacMini is 1920 x 1200 and on the Macbook Pro is 2560 x 1600.  On both Macs the issue also occurs in single window mode, and also with one monitor on the MacMini or two and on either monitor.  It also happens on the MacBook with no monitors – just the internal screen.

3)      Scaled High Resolution – I have this set to “Unity only” by default and it still happens.

I have also done a fresh download and install of VMware Fusion – which is at Version 8.5.0 (4352717) and the problem persists.

The VM on the Mac Mini 2 CPU cores and 4Gb of memory – when 3D graphics is enabled it allocated 1024Mb of shared graphics memory.  The MacbookPro also has two cores but only 3Gb of memory. Both are late 2014 models and have solid state drives and the latest version of MacOS Sierra.

The problem can be triggered by turning on 3D Graphics Acceleration in the VM settings (which is on by default).  If I turn that off, the problem goes away and comes back as soon as I turn it on with 100% consistency on both Macs.  Which is interesting as the issue is most easily reproducible using the EDGE Browser, where it happens a lot, especially on sites like VMware.com.  This makes me suspect the DirectX has the DirectWrite API which provides faster font rendering than Cleartype and can be hardware accelerated with the appropriate graphics card and driver.

The EDGE browser uses DirectWrite for font rendering as does the more recent versions of the Chrome browser.  Given that:

1)      The issue only seems to occur with fonts and happens on those two browsers (though much more with EDGE)

2)      The blurring is in the Windows screen image in the way it is rendered and can be captured by a Windows Screen print.

3)      The issue goes away when 3D acceleration is turned off.

It makes me suspect some kind of issue in the Windows 10 VMware DirectX driver in VMware tools and its support for DirectWrite

Regards

Geoff Costello

[RickShu]

Hi GeoffCostello,

I'm still unable to reproduce the blurring in Windows 10 VM. Today I launched Windows 10 VM with Fusion 8.5 in my Retina MacBookPro 15 with 2 external monitor connected. But I did not see any blurred text in Edge browser. Did you enable the ClearType text feature in Windows 10 VM? (You can find it in Advanced display setting panel)

Regards,

-Rick

[GeoffCostello]

Rick,

Thanks for your continued interest and input.  I had some great support from VMware when I put in a service request - they spent a few hours with remote access to my Macs to see the issue and explore different options.  This included, clean Windows 10 64 bit install,  turning clear type on and off, scaling fonts, changing a variety of VMware settings etc.  The only two things that resolved the issue on both my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro was turning of 3D graphics acceleration in wither VMware settings or just in specific applications (so far EDGE and Google Chrome) where the problem occurs.

Its apparently some compatibility issue that occurs with 3D graphics acceleration and specific applications under Windows 10 on certain Macs with Intel Graphics.  Both my Macs have similar generation Intel i5 - hence both having the issue.  VMware support were very helpful, spent quite a few hours on the phone and with remote access and really explored the issue well.  A senior engineer in the support team advised that this had been seen on a number of Macs in the VMware community's and in support - for example Windows 10 and Excel and 3D graphics had issues for some customers - also requiring hardware graphics acceleration to be turned off.  The support team were not were not aware of any plans to fix the issue at their end with a patch - but hey maybe it will happen some day.  In the mean time I am happy to live with turning off the 3D acceleration in specific apps and will retest the whole issue with upgrades to OS-X, Windows and VMware in the hope that a change eventually happens so that this tailoring of 3D graphics is not required.

So, I will close this issue now.  But if anyone else has checkerboard patterns or areas of grey blurring in fonts on applications under Windows 10 - consider turning the hardware graphics acceleration off too.

Cheers