3D Acceleration on CentOS, usage of VMware for 3d cad

[kaengo]

Hello to all here!

I've installed Workstation Pro on CentOS 7

The host is strong:

AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor

32GB RAM

FirePro W2100 (I will change it next time to a stronger card)

I want to use PTC Creo 3.0 on Win7 as guest system..

(I want to switch my engineering office to linux)

I'm trying vmware, vbox and kvm on the same machine (but not at the same time)

At this time, vmware is working best, but not good enough.

3D-Operation with models is working well at PTC Creo.

But at 2D Drawing module, panning and zooming results to a flashing screen ...

When starting the guest, I get the following messages:

Hardware graphics acceleration is not available - As a result, this virtual machine may experience very low graphics performance. Follow the instructions provided by your graphics card vendor or Linux distribution in order to update your computer's OpenGL drivers.

and

No 3D support is available from the host - The 3D features of the virtual machine will be disabled.

I've installed the 3D driver for linux.

1) What can I do?

2) Is there a chance to get Creo Running fluently on the guest?

3) Is there a graphics card, which is particularly suitable for VMWare workstation?

Greetings from Germany ,

Holger

[bluefirestorm]

What was the result you got when you run the steps outlined here?

VMware Workstation 12 Pro Documentation Center

For whatever it is worth, on my CentOS 7 guest VM with Accelerate 3D checked and 768MB video memory allocated running on Windows 10 host.

The output of glxinfo | grep direct

direct rendering: Yes

    GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float, GL_ARB_depth_clamp, GL_ARB_direct_state_access,

I suppose the important bit is the direct rendering is Yes.

And when I run glxgears - a window with 3D image red/green/blue gears running.

The GLX utilities are under the X Windows System in the Software install. It has dependencies on the Mesa 3D direct rendering drivers.

[wila]

Hi,

Sorry I have no idea if your graphics adapter (FirePro W2100) is good enough for full 3D support as it is the first time I hear about it.

In a number of recent occasions here at the forum, there have been times when the user had better results by using the older 3D engine from an earlier Workstation version.

This helped because their graphics adapters did not have a lot of graphics power to work with.

Admittedly that was on windows hosts.

But it never hurts to try and see if switching to the older engine helps.

In order to do that modify your vmx file by adding the following lines:

mks.enableD3DRenderer = TRUE 
mks.enableDX11Renderer = FALSE 

Note that you'll have to shutdown -not suspend- your VM before editing the vmx file.

--

Wil

[kaengo]

Hello bluefirestorm,

thank you for the answer.

glxinfo | grep direct

results to:

direct rendering: Yes

    GL_AMD_multi_draw_indirect, GL_AMD_name_gen_delete,

    GL_ARB_direct_state_access, GL_ARB_draw_buffers,

    GL_ARB_draw_indirect, GL_ARB_draw_instanced, GL_ARB_enhanced_layouts,

    GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_indirect_parameters, GL_ARB_instanced_arrays,

    GL_ARB_map_buffer_range, GL_ARB_multi_bind, GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect,

    GL_EXT_direct_state_access, GL_EXT_draw_buffers2, GL_EXT_draw_instanced,

    GL_AMD_multi_draw_indirect, GL_AMD_name_gen_delete,

    GL_ARB_direct_state_access, GL_ARB_draw_buffers,

    GL_ARB_draw_indirect, GL_ARB_draw_instanced, GL_ARB_enhanced_layouts,

    GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_indirect_parameters, GL_ARB_instanced_arrays,

    GL_ARB_map_buffer_range, GL_ARB_multi_bind, GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect,

    GL_EXT_direct_state_access, GL_EXT_draw_buffers2, GL_EXT_draw_instanced,

    GL_AMD_multi_draw_indirect, GL_AMD_name_gen_delete,

    GL_ARB_direct_state_access, GL_ARB_draw_buffers,

    GL_ARB_draw_indirect, GL_ARB_draw_instanced, GL_ARB_enhanced_layouts,

    GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_indirect_parameters, GL_ARB_instanced_arrays,

    GL_ARB_map_buffer_range, GL_ARB_multi_bind, GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect,

    GL_EXT_direct_state_access, GL_EXT_draw_buffers2, GL_EXT_draw_instanced,

glxgears shows the three wheels,  more than 2100 FPS

But there are these two messages, if I start the guest system ....

I've attached a screenshot  from inside the guest windows, showing the graphics driver.

The question is:

Is all working correct? Than, VMware is to slow for me and I must install windows directly ...;-(

Or is something not working (OpenGL?), than there is a chance,

that vmware is suitable for me.

Greetings,

Holger

[kaengo]

Hi Wila,

the graphic card supports OGL 4.4

FirePro™ W2100 Professional Graphics Cards | AMD

So I think, it is enough.

I can try it.

but where is the vmx-file?

Greetings,

Holger

[wila]

Hello Holger,

Yes it should be plenty.

The vmx file is in the folder where the Virtual Machine is located.

It is the main configuration file for the virtual hardware of your virtual machine.

Btw, is this a new virtual machine? If so then it should have the latest virtual hardware, if not then you should check that it has been set to the latest virtual hardware.

(you can see virtual hardware version in the VMware workstation library when the VM is shut down, near the bottom of the screen, under the preview.)

Edit: if it still doesn't work after that, then please attach the vmware.log file to a reply here.

I take it that you did install VMware Tools?

--

Wil

[kaengo]

Hi wila,

I don't unterstand it, but your advise has improved the power of my VM  a lot!

Now, zoming and paning of drawings works fine.

Now I've tried working on the 3D-model, and it sticks a bit.

Handling the model is OK.

But if I want to select a single part,

than it hangs.

If I try to generate tne ,windows rating' of the computer, I get an error (see png)

Yes, the machine is new, I have downloaded VMware Worstation 30 day test version ..

and set it up before 2 days.

Virtual Hardware is: Workstation 12.x virtual machine

What are VMware Tools?

I will look tomorrow.

Greetings,

Holger

[bluefirestorm]

VMware Tools is a group of device drivers (including the SVGA 3D driver) and adds capability for VM-to-VM and host-to-VM/VM-to-host communication. For example, copy and paste between host and VM or copy files between host and VM through shared folders. There should be an "Install VMware Tools" or "Reinstall VMware Tools" (if already installed) under the VM menu when the VM is running.

A visual cue if SVGA 3D driver is not installed on the guest VM, the display of the VM can only be set up to a maximum of 800x600 or 1024x768 (depending on guest VM OS).

Note that the latest SVGA 3D driver in Workstation 12.x supports up to OpenGL 3.3 core functionality only. The VMware documentation does not explicitly state it requires MESA 3D DRI for Linux hosts but the fact that it uses glxinfo and glxgears to test the Linux host to prepare for Accelerated 3D graphics in VMs implies it is a requirement.

It is interesting that the glxgears ran on your native machine with 2100fps. On the CentOS 7 VM that I have, with Accelerate 3D checked, 768MB video memory, it ran around 3500-3800fps. If I uncheck the Accelerate 3D, it ran only around 1000-1100fps. Of course, underneath the actual hardware render engine of my Windows 10 host is a GTX 960M.

For Windows 7/10 guest VMs, if Accelerate 3D of the Display setting is not checked, only 128MB video memory is allocated. If Accelerate 3D is checked, it assigns 1GB dedicated video memory by default to the virtual display adapter.

[kaengo]

Thank you for the tips.

The tools have been installed.

But also at this time, the velocity is improved considerable.

I have the hope, that it will  work with Creo on Linux....

What you says, bluefirestorm, (3500fps in virtual machine) shows, that at my workstation is a bug...

Unfortunately, I'm not hardware-specialist

I read, that opengl may work better using the ,open source' driver for ati cards, not the proprietary amd drivers..

But now  I'm waiting on my stronger graphic card, than I will try.

Until that best regards,

Holger

[bluefirestorm]

From what I can see doing a cursory search Creo recommends OpenGL 4 but I can't find a minimum requirement.

What I did find out with the CentOS 7 VM with and without Accelerated 3D graphics enabled is the difference in OpenGL support. This can be seen from the results of glxinfo | grep OpenGL. It would looks as though only OpenGL 2.1 is supported when Accelerated 3D graphics is disabled on the VM which probably accounts for the slower frame rate in the glxgears, given that all things are as close as equal as it can get; using the same VM on the same host with just one difference in VM setting.

Output of glxinfo | grep OpenGL without Accelerated 3D enabled

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.

OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.8, 256 bits)

OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 11.2.2

OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

OpenGL extensions:

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 2.0 Mesa 11.2.2

OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 1.0.16

OpenGL ES profile extensions:

Output of glxinfo | grep OpenGL with Accelerated 3D enabled

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.

OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on SVGA3D; build: RELEASE;  LLVM;

OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 11.2.2

OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30

OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)

OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL core profile extensions:

OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.2

OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

OpenGL context flags: (none)

OpenGL extensions:

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.0 Mesa 11.2.2

OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.00

OpenGL ES profile extensions:

[kaengo]

Hi wila, hi bluefirestorm

I bought a new graphic card ...

(Nvidia Ge GeForce GTX 750Ti 4GB)

Now all runs fine.

PTC Creo runs on Windows 7 on CentOS 7.3 ....

Great!

Don't know what was wrong with the AMD Cards.

Greetings

H.Steffen

[bluefirestorm]

From techpowerup.com,

AMD FirePro W2100

Memory Type:     DDR3

Memory Bus:     128 bit

Bandwidth:     28.80 GB/s

Pixel Rate:     5.44 GPixel/s

Texture Rate:     13.60 GTexel/s

Floating-point performance:     435.2 GFLOPS

Nvidia GTX 750Ti

Memory Type:     GDDR5

Memory Bus:     128 bit

Bandwidth:     86.4 GB/s

Pixel Rate:     16.32 GPixel/s

Texture Rate:     40.8 GTexel/s

Floating-point performance:     1,305.6 GFLOPS

Taking the pixel rate, texture rate, and GFLOPS, the GTX 750Ti is much faster than the previous FirePro W2100 that you had. If these 3 parameters were more or less equal/similar, the memory bandwidth would have been the tie-breaker.