Per-VM EVC is deactivated by default. You can activate, deactivate, and change the EVC mode of a virtual machine to ensure its seamless migration across clusters, vCenter Server systems, and data centers that have different processors.

To check what the EVC mode of a virtual machine is, see How to Determine the EVC Mode of Your Virtual Machine.

Prerequisites

Power off the virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to a virtual machine in the vCenter Server inventory.
  2. On the Configure tab, select VMware EVC.
    The pane shows details about the EVC mode of the virtual machine and CPUID details.
    Important: For newly created virtual machines, the EVC mode that shows in the VMware EVC pane is deactivated.

    For powered off virtual machines, the VMware EVC pane always shows the EVC status defined at the virtual machine level.

    For powered on virtual machines with per-VM EVC activated, the VMware EVC pane shows the EVC status defined at the virtual machine level.

    For powered on virtual machines with per-VM EVC deactivated, the VMware EVC pane shows the EVC mode that the virtual machine inherits from its parent EVC cluster or host.

  3. Click the Edit button.
    The Change EVC Mode dialog box opens.
  4. In the Change EVC Mode dialog box, select whether to activate or deactivate EVC.
    Option Description
    Disable EVC The EVC feature is deactivated for the virtual machine. When you power on the virtual machine, it inherits the feature set of its parent EVC cluster or host.
    Enable EVC for AMD hosts The EVC feature is activated for AMD hosts.
    Enable EVC for Intel hosts The EVC feature is activated for Intel hosts.
    Custom This option is visible only if you have customized the EVC mode of the virtual machine through the API calls.
  5. (Optional) From the CPU Mode drop-down menu, select a baseline CPU feature set.
    Important: If the virtual machine is in an EVC cluster and the per-VM EVC mode exceeds the EVC mode for the cluster, the virtual machine fails to power on. The baseline CPU feature set for the virtual machine must not contain more CPU features than the baseline CPU feature set of the cluster.
  6. (Optional) From the Graphics Mode (vSGA) drop-down menu, select a baseline graphics feature set.
    Option Description
    Baseline Graphics Applies the Baseline Graphics feature set that includes features through Direct3D 10.1/OpenGL 3.3.
    Note: To configure the vSGA mode to apply the Baseline Graphics set that includes features through Direct3D 10.1/OpenGL 3.3, the virtual machine must be compatible with ESXi 7.0 Update 1 or earlier.
    D3D 11.0 class features Applies the baseline graphics feature set that includes features through Direct3D 11.0/OpenGL 4.1
    Note: To configure the vSGA mode to apply the Baseline Graphics set that includes features through Direct3D 11.0/OpenGL 4.1, verify that the virtual machine is compatible with ESXi 7.0 Update 2 or later and has installed VMware Tools 11.1.5 or later.

    To power on a virtual machine, configured with Direct3D 11.0/OpenGL 4.1, verify that the ESXi host graphics hardware is available.
  7. Click OK.