The virtual machine compatibility setting determines the virtual hardware available to the virtual machine, which corresponds to the physical hardware available on the host. To determine whether to upgrade the virtual machines in your environment, you can review and compare the hardware available for different compatibility levels.

With vSphere 8.0 Update 2, you can add up to 128 PCI passthrough devices to a virtual machine.

For more information about the virtual machine compatibility and the supported hardware versions, see the VMware KB article at: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2007240.

Table 1. Supported Features for Virtual Machine Compatibility
Feature Feature Availability by Virtual Hardware Version (HWV) Recent Hardware Versions
21 20 19 18 17 15
ESXi compatibility See KB 2007240 ESXi 8.0 Update 2 and later ESXi 8.0 and later ESXi 7.0 Update 2 and later ESXi 7.0 Update 1 and later ESXi 7.0 and later ESXi 6.7 Update 2 and later
BIOS firmware (1)
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
UEFI firmware (1)
  • HWV 8 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Secure Boot
  • HWV 13 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Maximum number of logical processors (2)
  • 768 for HWV 18 or later
  • 256 for HWV 15 - 17
  • 128 for HWV 11 - 14
  • 64 for HWV 9 - 10
  • 32 for HWV 8
  • 8 for HWV 7
  • 4 for HWV 4
 768 768 768 768 256 256
Maximum number of cores (virtual CPUs) per socket (3)
  • 256 for HWV 20
  • 64 for HWV 9 - 19
  • 32 for HWV 8
  • 8 for HWV 7
  • 1 for HWV 4
 256 256 64 64 64 64
CPU Hot Add support
  • HWV 11 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Maximum memory (GB) (4)
  • 24560 for HWV 20 or later
  • 6128 for HWV 13 - 17
  • 4080 for HWV 11
  • 1011 for HWV 8 - 10
  • 256 for HWV 7
  • 64 for HWV 4
 24560 24560 24560 24560 6128 6128
Memory Hot Add Support
  • HWV 7 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Virtual NUMA Topology
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
Maximum PCI passthrough devices
  • HWV 20:
    • Max 32 for ESXi 8.0
    • Max 64 for ESXi 8.0 Update 1
  • 16 for HWV 13 - 19
 128 32 for ESXi 8.0

64 for ESXi 8.0 Update 1

 16 16 16 16
PCI Hot Add support
  • HWV 13 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Virtual PMC support
  • HWV 9 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Dynamic DirectPath
  • HWV 17 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y N
Enhanced DirectPath I/O
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
Vendor Device Groups
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
Intel Advanced Matrix eXtensions (AMX)
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
AMD SEV-ES
  • HWV 18 or later
 Y Y Y Y N N
Virtual Hyperthreading
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
Virtual I/O MMU for Intel hosts
  • HWV 14 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Virtual I/O MMU for AMD hosts
  • HWV 18 or later
 Y Y Y Y N N
Virtual SGX device
  • HWV 17 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y N
Nested virtualization (5)
  • HWV 9 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Microsoft VBS for Intel hosts
  • HWV 14 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Microsoft VBS for AMD hosts
  • HWV 19 or later
 Y Y Y N N N
Communication Interfaces
Maximum Serial ports
  • 32 for HWV 11 or later
  • 4 for HWV 4 - 10
 32 32 32 32 32 32
Maximum Parallel ports 3 for all HWV 3 3 3 3 3 3
USB 2.0 (13)
  • HWV 7 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
USB 3.1 SuperSpeed (14)
  • HWV 8 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
USB 3.1 SuperSpeedPlus (14)
  • HWV 17 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y N
USB 3.2 (14)
  • HWV 21 or later
 Y N N N N N
Maximum USB devices
  • HWV 7 or later
 20 20 20 20 20 20
VMCI
  • HWV 7 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
DataSets Service
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
vMotion App Notification
  • HWV 20 or later
 Y Y N N N N
Networking
Maximum NICs
  • 10 for HWV 7 or later
  • 4 for HWV 4
 10 10 10 10 10 10
VMXNet3 version
  • 8 for HWV 20 or later
  • 7 for HWV 19
  • 6 for HWV 18
  • 5 for HWV 15 and 17
  • 4 for HWV 14
  • 3 for HWV 13
  • 2 for HWV 11
  • 1 for HWV 7 - 10
 8 8 7 6 5 5
VMXNet2 version
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
VMXNet version
  • HWV 4 or later
 N N N N N N
PCNet32 (6)
  • HWV 4 or later
 N N N N N N
E1000e
  • HWV 8 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
E1000
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
PVRDMA RoCE versions
  • RoCEv2 for HWV 14-20
  • RoCEv1 for HWV 13-19
 RoCEv2 RoCEv2 RoCEv1, RoCEv2 RoCEv1, RoCEv2 RoCEv1, RoCEv2 RoCEv1, RoCEv2
Maximum PVRDMA NICs
  • HWV 13 or later
 10 10 10 1 1 1
PVRDMA native endpoints (7)
  • HWV 18 or later
 Y Y Y Y (7) N N
ATA Storage
Maximum Floppy Devices
  • 2 for all HWV
 2 2 2 2 2 2
Maximum IDE controllers
  • HWV 4 or later
 1 1 1 1 1 1
Maximum Virtual IDE disks and Virtual IDE CD-ROMs in any combination
  • HWV 4 or later
 4 4 4 4 4 4
Maximum Virtual IDE CD-ROMs
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Virtual IDE Disks
  • HWV 7 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
IDE hot add support
  • Not supported for all HWV
 N N N N N N
Maximum disks per Virtual SATA controller
  • HWV 10 or later
 30 30 30 30 30 30
Maximum SATA controllers
  • 4 for HWV 10 or later
 4 4 4 4 4 4
SCSI Storage
Maximum Virtual SCSI disks
  • HWV 4 or later
 256 256 256 256 256 60
Maximum SCSI controllers
  • 4 for HWV 4 or later (12)
 4 4 4 4 4 4
Maximum disks per VMware Paravirtual SCSI controllers
  • HWV 7 or later
 64 64 64 64 64 15
Maximum disks per LSI Logic SAS SCSI controllers
  • HWV 7 or later
 15 15 15 15 15 15
Maximum disks per LSI Logic SCSI controllers
  • HWV 4 or later
 15 15 15 15 15 15
Maximum disks per Bus Logic SCSI controllers
  • HWV 4 or later
 15 15 15 15 15 15
SCSI passthrough support
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
SCSI hot add support
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
SCSI Read only support
  • HWV 21 or later
 Y N N N N N
NVMe Storage
Maximum Virtual NVMe disks
  • 256 for HWV 21 or later
  • 60 for HWV 13 - 20
 256 60 60 60 60 60
Maximum NVMe controllers
  • 4 for HWV 13 or later
 4 4 4 4 4 4
Maximum NVMe disks per controller
  • 64 for HWV 21 or later
  • 15 for HWV 13 - 20
 64 15 15 15 15 15
NVMe version (8)
  • 1.3c for HWV 19 or later
  • 1.0e for HWV 13 - 18
  • See notes (10) and (11)
 1.3c (11) 1.3c (10) 1.3c (10) 1.0e 1.0e 1.0e
Virtual Disk
Maximum Virtual disk size
  • HWV 13 or later
 62 TB 62 TB 62 TB 62 TB 62 TB 62 TB
Persistent Memory
Virtual PMEM disks support
  • HWV 14 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Maximum NVDIMM controllers
  • 1 for HWV 14 or later
 1 1 1 1 1 1
Maximum NVDIMM devices
  • 64 for HWV 14 or later
 64 64 64 64 64 64
Graphics
Maximum vGPUs
  • 16 for HWV 21
  • 8 for HWV 20
  • 4 for HWV 13 - 19
 16 8 4 4 4 4
Maximum SVGA displays
  • 10 for HWV 7 or later
  • 1 for HWV 4
 10 10 10 10 10 10
Maximum video memory (MB)
  • 256 for HWV 18 or later
  • 128 for HWV 11 - 17
  • 512 for HWV 9 - 10
  • 128 for HWV 4 - 8
 256 256 256 256 128 128
Maximum 3D graphics memory (GB)
  • 8 for HWV 18 or later
  • 4 for HWV 17
  • 2 for HWV 11 - 15
 8 8 8 8 4 2
SVGA 3D hardware acceleration
  • HWV 8 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
WDDM version
  • 1.2 for HWV 20 or later
  • 1.1 for HWV 17 - 19
  • 1.0 for HWV 7 - 15
 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0
Direct3D version (9)
  • 11.0 for HWV 19 or later
  • 10.1 for HWV 17 - 18
  • 10.0 for HWV 13 - 15
  • 9.x for HWV 7 - 12
 11.0 11.0 11.0 10.1 10.1 10.0
OpenGL version
  • 4.3 for HWV 20 or later
  • 4.0 for HWV 19
  • 3.3 for HWV 13 - 18
 4.3 4.3 4.0 3.3 3.3 3.3
Other Virtual Devices
Memory ballooning
  • HWV 4 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Virtual TPM 2.0
  • HWV 14 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Virtual Precision Clock device
  • HWV 17 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y N
Virtual Watchdog Timer device
  • HWV 17 or later
 Y Y Y Y Y N
  • (1) - By default, for each combination of hardware version and guest operating system, vSphere will use either UEFI or BIOS. Some guest operating systems require either UEFI or BIOS firmware, or support both firmware types. If the guest operating system supports BIOS and UEFI, change the default firmware type of a virtual machine before you install the guest operating system. Otherwise, you must reinstall the guest operating system.
  • (2) - UEFI firmware is required for more than 128 logical processors.
  • (3) - UEFI firmware is required for more than 64 virtual CPUs per sockets.
  • (4) - UEFI firmware is required for more than 6 TB of virtual memory.
  • (5) - For more information about the nested virtualization support limits, see the VMware KB article at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2009916.
  • (6) - 32-bit virtual machines only.
  • (7) - PVRDMA native endpoints for virtual machines of hardware version 18 do not support vSphere vMotion.
  • (8) - By default, Windows virtual machines of hardware version 20 use NVMe version 1.0e.
  • (9) - Direct3D requires VMware WDDM driver in the Windows guest operating system.
  • (10) NVMe version 1.0 is the default NVMe controller for Windows virtual machines of hardware versions 19 and 20.
  • (11) NVMe 1.3c is the default NVMe controller for virtual machines of hardware version 21 with Windows Server 2022 or later and Windows 11 or later guest operating systems.
  • (12) The maximum number of SCSI controllers is 4 for any combination of PVSCI, LSI, or BusLogic controllers.
  • (13) When you select USB 2.0 from the vSphere user interface, two controllers are added to the virtual machine - UHCI for USB 1.x and EHCI for USB 2.0.
  • (14) Virtual machines can have only one USB 3.x controller and an additional USB 2.0 controller.