AutoCAD has released a beta of their new (free 🙂 CAD program, 123D (http://www.123dapp.com/) which runs on various versions of Windows, including XP. Requires "Direct3D" support. When run on a WinXP VM it hangs both Fusion and Mac OS X. Here are the details submitted to the 123D beta forum:
Running 123D (32-bit) in a Windows XP (with latest updates) running in a VM on a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo using VMwares Fusion 3.1.2 (latest rev) and Mac OS X 10.6.7 (latest).
The VM is allocated 2 CPUs and 2 GB of RAM. 3D acceleration is turned on and reports the following:
Enable 3D graphics for the following virtual machines:
• Windows XP: DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1
• Windows Vista and Windows 7: DirectX 9.0EX with Aero and OpenGL 2.1
When I installed 123D, the process paused to upgrade the DirectX software from MS (which completed normally). 123D installation completed without error message.
When I start 123D, I get the "Get Started!" window as reported in Nick's msg. But when I attempt to open the sample project, I get a HARD HANG! In fact, it's so hard that sending a CTRL-ALT-DEL to the VM does nothing. It even freezes the Fusion engine. I have trouble killing the process on the Mac OS X side. In one attempt, it even froze Mac OS X and I had to do a hardware shutdown and reboot! Have never(!) seen that with any WinXP app running in VM before! I suspect something really deep in the graphics chain -- Very impressive 🙂
Actually Mac OS X is probably still running, but the display is frozen, so it doesn't matter. I had to do a forced shutdown on the Mac to recover.
Did some additional testing with VMware Fusion on my Mac (configuration described above). Varied the GPU optimization settings in Control Panels > Displays > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshoot in the VMware SVGA II (dated 4/21/2010, vers: 11.06.00.0035) virtual GPU driver. There's a slider with 6 settings ranging from all optimizations on to none.
With the lower settings, 123D complains about insufficient graphics support and won't start. With the higher settings, it hangs. No useful intermediate setting.
Definitely looks like something VMware needs to address. I'll see if I can get a copy of this thread into a bug report for them. Would be useful if the VMware and AutoCAD teams could collaborate on this one 🙂
I've downloaded the DirectX SDK from MS; presume the DirectX diagnostic tool is contained therein. Will try to do some testing on both 123D and Fusion.
Anybody at VMware have any idea what's happening here? Any hope of getting it fixed? 🙂
Mike
