When you create or edit a virtual machine, you can configure 3D graphics to take advantage of Windows AERO, CAD, Google Earth, and other 3D design, modeling, and multimedia applications.

Before you enable 3D graphics, become familiar with the available options and requirements.

How Enabling 3D Graphics Affects the Virtual Machine

You can use vMotion to migrate virtual machines that have 3D graphics enabled. If the 3D Renderer is set to Automatic, virtual machines use either the GPU on the destination host or a software renderer, depending on GPU availability. To migrate virtual machines with the 3D Renderer set to Hardware, the destination host must have a GPU.

You can set a group of virtual machines to use only Hardware rendering. For example, if you have virtual machines that run CAD applications or have other complex engineering capabilities, you might require that those virtual machines have persistent high-quality 3D capability present. When you migrate such virtual machines, the destination host must also have GPU capability. If the host does not have GPU, the migration cannot proceed. To migrate such virtual machines, you must turn them off and change the renderer setting to Automatic.

You can enable 3D on virtual machines that have Windows desktop or Linux guest operating systems. Not all guests support 3D graphics. To verify 3D support for a guest operating system, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

Prerequisites

VMware supports AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. See the vendor website for supported cards. To use the graphics card or GPU hardware, download the appropriate VMware graphics driver from the vendor website.

  • Go to the NVIDIA website for information about the VMware graphics driver for your NVIDIA graphics card.
  • Go to the AMD website for information about the VMware graphics driver for your AMD graphics card.
Linux distributions must have a 3.2 or later kernel. If 3D is not available on a Linux guest, verify that the driver is available in the Linux kernel. If it is not available, upgrade to a more recent Linux distribution. The location of the kernel depends on whether the distribution is based on deb or rpm.
Table 1. Linux Driver Location
VMware Linux Guest Kernel Drivers Debian Format RPM Format
vmwgfx.ko dpkg -S vmwgfx.ko rpm -qf vmwgfx.ko
vmwgfx_dri.so dpkg -S vmwgfx_dri rpm -qf vmwgfx_dri
vmware_drv.so dpkg -S vmware_drv rpm -qf vmware_drv
libxatracker.so.1 dpkg -S libxatracker rpm -qf libxatracker

3D Rendering Options

You can select the 3D rendering options for each virtual machine to be Hardware, Software, or Automatic.

Table 2. 3D Rendering Options
Rendering Option Description
Hardware The virtual machine must have access to a physical GPU. If the GPU is not available, the virtual machine cannot power on.
Software The virtual machine's virtual device uses a software renderer and will not attempt to use a GPU, even if one is present.
Automatic The default setting. The virtual device selects whether to use a physical GPU or software-based rendering. If a GPU is available on the system and has the resources required by the virtual machine, the virtual machine uses the GPU. Otherwise software rendering is used.

Configure 3D Graphics and Video Cards

When you enable 3D graphics, you can select a hardware or software graphics renderer and optimize the graphics memory allocated to the virtual machine. You can increase the number of displays in multi-monitor configurations and change the video card settings to meet your graphics requirements.

The default setting for total video RAM is adequate for minimal desktop resolution. For more complex situations, you can change the default memory. Typically, 3D applications require a video memory of 64–512 MB.

Fault Tolerance is not supported for virtual machines that have 3D graphics enabled.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the virtual machine is powered off.
  • Verify that the virtual machine compatibility is ESXi 5.0 and later.
  • To enable 3D graphics in virtual machines with Windows 8 guest operating systems, the virtual machine compatibility must be ESXi 5.1 or later.
  • To use a Hardware 3D renderer, ensure that graphics hardware is available. See How do I Configure 3D Graphics.
  • If you update the virtual machine compatibility from ESXi 5.1 and later to ESXi 5.5 and later, reinstall VMware Tools to get the latest SVGA virtual graphics driver and Windows Display Driver Model driver.
  • Verify that you have the Virtual machine.Change Configuration.Modify device settings privilege on the virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
  2. On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand Video Card.
  3. Select custom or automatic settings for your displays from the drop-down menu.
    Option Description
    Auto-detect settings

    Applies common video settings to the guest operating system.

    Specify custom settings

    Lets you select the number of displays and the total video memory.

  4. Select the number of displays from the drop-down menu.
    You can set the number of displays and extend the screen across them.
  5. Enter the required video memory.
  6. (Optional) Select Enable 3D support.
    This check box is active only for guest operating systems on which VMware supports 3D.
  7. (Optional) Select a 3D Renderer.
    Option Description
    Automatic Selects the appropriate option (software or hardware) for this virtual machine.
    Software Uses normal CPU processing for 3D calculations.
    Hardware

    Requires graphics hardware (GPU) for faster 3D calculations.

    Note: The virtual machine will not power on if graphics hardware is not available.
  8. Click OK.

Results

Sufficient memory allocation is set for this virtual machine's graphics.

Reduce Memory Overhead for Virtual Machines with 3D Graphics Option

Virtual machines with the 3D graphics option enabled can have higher memory consumption than other virtual machines. You can reduce the memory overhead by editing the configuration file (.vmx file) of your virtual machines and disabling certain memory-related settings. Reducing the memory overhead of virtual machines can help you increase the number of virtual machines per host.

Prerequisites

Verify that your virtual machines are using hardware version 10 or later.

Procedure

  1. Shut down the virtual machine on which the 3D graphics option is enabled.
  2. Deactivate the Accelerate 3D Graphics option.
  3. Upgrade your ESXi host to use the features available in hardware version 10 or later.
  4. Set the maximum size of your display to the size you need.
  5. Locate the configuration file (.vmx) of your virtual machine.
  6. Open the virtual machine configuration file in a text editor and add the line, svga.vgaOnly=TRUE.
    This option removes all graphics and SVGA functionality from your SVGA device, but does not remove the settings that allow BIOS to enter VGA mode.
  7. Save the changes and exit the text editor.
  8. Power on your virtual machine and check the display console.
  9. Verify the memory reservation settings in the vmware.log file.