Paying 1000$ for anyone that can get SWTOR working on VMWare Workstation

[JoshRMT]

I will PayPal or bank transfer $1000 to anyone that can get the new PC game 'Starwars:  The Old Republic' working properly on VMWare Workstation.  Simple as that.  I am willing to discuss the issue on the phone, I just need a solution ASAP.  If you are interested in helping me with this, please email me at joshrmt@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Josh Griffith

A frustrated VMWare Workstation customer

[TheSeaward]

mks.enable3d = TRUE

svga.vramSize = "134217728"

• The value must be evenly divisible by 65536 when the guest is running Windows. For more information, seeCertain graphical elements are not drawn in a virtual machine running Windows (1001558).

  If the value exceeds the maximum video RAM supported by your hardware version, it is automatically adjusted to the maximum.

  Calculate the amount of video memory required to support the highest desired resolution. Multiply the width by the height of the largest resolution desired, then multiply the result by 4. If the result exceeds 16777216 (or 4194304, for ESX Server), the video memory must be increased. Add or update the following line to the .vmx file and then append the resulting value of the calculation:
  
  svga.vramSize =
  
  Example: To add the resolution 2560 x 2048 to a Workstation virtual machine, multiply 2560 * 2048 * 4 to get 20971520. This is the amount of memory in bytes required for the resolution. The result, 20971520 bytes, exceeds the default of 16777216 bytes. Therefore, you must add the following line to increase the video memory available:
  
  svga.vramSize = 20971520

My Host's video card has 1GB of memory, it's an ATI 6870.

I run dual displays but I suppose for these purposes I can drop that value to 2073600 8294400 [1] and still be able to draw 1920x1080 if I'm understanding this correctly.  I got the value from your config and I didn't know what it was for.  Let me try that and see if I get a different result.

My Windows 7 VM (non-Boot Camp) is behind on patches and VMWare Tools needs an update.  Woo, exciting evening.  I'd rather be flying with Jedis.

[1] fixed to 8294400 -- 1920 * 1080 * 4 = 8294400 but 8294400 isn't divisible by 65536. 

[TheSeaward]

Yeah I have no idea what I should be setting that value to.

I don't know where you got 134217728 in your config either, maybe it's shorthand for "whatver you got"?

I can't get my calculator to let me come up with a number divisble by 65536 for any combination of displays.

1920 * 1080 = 2073600 * 4 = 8294400 / 65536 = 126.5625

[yenna]

I got SWTOR working on VMWare Player 3.1.5 with XP with SVGA II Driver.

I get black screen if I run on VMWare Player 4.0 with Windows 7 x64 with VMware SVGA 3d (Micrsoft -WDDM) Driver.

I want to try SVGA II driver on Windows 7, but could not find SVGA II driver to download. Tried instruction I found switching between SVGAII and WDDM, but there was no SVGA II driver found in VMWare tools.

http://openstorage.gunadarma.ac.id/ALtitip/VMware%20Workstation%207.0%20Build%20185517%20Technical%2...

[JarettHA]

My  driver version is 4.17.  This is a bit older.  If you found a copy of this version it should work.  Vmware is aware the issue is within the drivers and hopefully they will have a working set soon.

[nirvy]

If swtor detects vista or win7 it restricts itself to using only the gfx cards onboard memory.  to avoid this set compatibility mode on the launcher to xp sp3... Might not fix it but worth a shot.

[JarettHA]

Create a system restore point, and try manually installing these drivers:  http://www.uglyduck.com/info/vmware/swtor/vmware_swtor_fix.rar

I do not have the original tools pack which were used on my vm, but these are the dll and inf I used.

(These are vmware signed Windows 7 WDDM drivers for VMware SVGA 3d device)

[TheSeaward]

I hate to be That Guy™, but I can't for the life of me get these drivers to install.  I try to load the inf files when prompted to find a driver after I tell it that I want to find it myself and that I have the disk, but it says it can't install.

Install from disk dialog:

Driver isn't signed but seems to have the right device type.

Can't find the file specified. 

Sorry for remedial driver hacks questions, but I'd like to give it a try.

[JarettHA]

Nah you arent "That Guy"  I dont have the original directory for the drivers from my version of tools. So I just copied them and the inf.   Hopefully someone from VMware will chime in and say which tools pack my version came from, and maybe provide a link.

[TheSeaward]

Can I trouble you to confirm that you don't have the drivers lurking in:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\video_wddm

[TheLoneVM]

Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread, we have reproduced the problem here at VMware and are investigating the regression.  In the meantime, it has been pointed out that ToR works pretty well with an older version of Tools, so I'll link those here instead of having users try to manually install the individual driver components.  A spot check seems to be Ok, but you may see some issues with other 3D apps or problems with Unity and Drag and Drop with this older version of tools installed, so keep that in mind.

For Workstation, the basic steps to install are to download the linked ISO from the host, then in the guest go to control panel, add/remove programs, and remove the current VMware tools and reboot.  Go to  Workstation -> VM -> Settings pulldown, select CD ROM -> Use ISO image file and browse to the downloaded ISO image.  Autoplay should start the tools setup automatically or browse to CD Rom drive and run setup.exe to install tools and then reboot. Be sure to set the CD Rom settings back to physical drive after this is complete.

Fusion instructions should be the same except slightly diffferent names for the pulldown menu.

http://ftpsite.vmware.com/download/Fusion/VMware-tools-windows-8.2.4-232708.iso

[serverleader]

the link to the ISO seems to be broken ...

[TheLoneVM]

File has been re-uploaded.

[Countabbot]

Do I have to do something to keep the VMTools from auto-updating themselves?

After I install from the old ISO it seems to upgrade itself back to 8.8.1.

[TheLoneVM]

Ah, sorry about that, I'm using debug builds so autoupdate is autmatically disabled.  There's a thread here that explains how to disable autoupdate for tools.  http://communities.vmware.com/thread/169784

The short version is to edit the .vmx file and change

tools.upgrade.policy = "upgradeAtPowerCycle"

to

tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"

[Countabbot]

Great, I can confirm using this version of VMTools allows me to play SWTOR in (Guest) Windows 7 64 bit, Host Mac OSX 10.6.8.

[serverleader]

the latest update of vmtools plays the game excelent .... except the mouse acts crazy.....

anybody has problems with the mouse acting up during character movement ? (while pressing the mouse button and moving the mouse)

[TheLoneVM]

>>the latest update of vmtools plays the game excelent .... except the mouse acts crazy.....

Yes, there are some circumstances where Fusion can't automatically detect a change between absolute and relative mouse mode.  To fix the problem, go to VMware Fusion -> Preferences -> General -> Gaming Mouse and switch the pulldown from Auto-detect to Always Optimize.  To switch this back after exiting the game press Control + Option keys to release the cursor from the VM.

[TheSeaward]

I can report I'm able to successfully play in VMWare Fusion from my Boot Camp disk!  Doesn't seem to perform as well as Parallels Demo did but I imagine that's an artifact of the older driver.  When the issue is addressed by VMWare with a future VMWare Tools package I imagine it will be totally copacetic.

I realize gaming probably isn't a huge priority for the VMWare team, and I want to express my thanks to JarettHA for sharing the secrets of his success and to TheLoneVM for taking up the cause and championing this issue internally and getting us a stop-gap driver kit in the meantime so we can all be more like JarettHA and run ancient VMWare tools

Thanks a lot everyone, I guess JarretHA should be getting that dude's $1000 any day now!  :smileylaugh:

[JarettHA]

If it aint broke, don't fix it     I move my VMs between fusion, workstation, and ESXi so often I tend not to update my tools more than every 5-6 months since I don't want to break compatibility with ESXi.

TheSeaward, glad it's now playable for you.  I am looking forward to a new tuned driver pack.  It is good that VMware put an engineer on this with a very in depth graphics an 3d background.

[serverleader]

I must be a lucky one ... :smileygrin: cause I can play SWTOR with the latest drivers very smoth! .... in fact when used the provided drivers here it was horrible...

could be my specs too...

Processor  2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon

Memory  16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC

Graphics  ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB

Software  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50)

thanks for the help