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I am trying to enable hardware accelerated 3D graphics in a Win 8.1 VM in VMware Workstation 10.0.3 on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (Trusty Tahr) to play the game Smite smoothly. I have checked that the HW acceleration works in Ubuntu:

$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p
OpenGL vendor string:   Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile 
OpenGL version string:  3.0 Mesa 10.2.2

Not software rendered:    yes
Not blacklisted:          yes
GLX fbconfig:             yes
GLX texture from pixmap:  yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program:        yes
GL fragment program:      yes
GL vertex buffer object:  yes
GL framebuffer object:    yes
GL version is 1.4+:       yes

Unity 3D supported:       yes

In VMware Workstation, on the VM under "Virtual Machine Settings" -> "Display" -> "Accelerate 3D Graphics" is checked.

Screenshot

But while booting the VM, it says "No 3D support is available from the host".

Screenshot

How comes VMware does not detect HW 3D acceleration? How can I fix this?

Thanks!

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
91

Edit the file ~/.vmware/preferences and look for a line that starts with mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers, if it is not present - you can add it into the file.

This should be changed to mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE" (note the double quotes around TRUE)

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  • 7
    Just wanted to note that this also works in Workstation 11. By default, the mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers parameter is not present in the preferences file, but adding it does work. Thanks.
    – user394700
    Apr 3, 2015 at 22:15
  • 5
    Work in VMware Workstation 12.
    – Guicara
    Nov 30, 2015 at 22:30
  • 4
    Same is needed for the free vmware-player
    – Treviño
    Apr 19, 2016 at 18:24
  • 3
    Works in VMware Workstation 14.1
    – shadowbq
    Feb 7, 2018 at 15:34
  • 3
    Worked for VMware Player 14.1.1 on Fedora 27
    – Chang Qian
    Mar 18, 2018 at 6:48
18

Add mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE" in the .vmx file.

It has worked for Linux Mint Cinnamon as host with kernel 3.16 and Debian 8.2 Cinnamon as guest.

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3
  • +1 for likely relevant answer. While this forum post in 2013 seems to agree, this Ask Ubuntu post indicates it is not always the case. This depends on video driver support too.
    – user37165
    Dec 4, 2015 at 4:09
  • I didn't have a Preferences file so I modified the VMX on Workstation 12. Worked like a charm.
    – Drewdin
    May 5, 2016 at 2:00
  • Note for those migrating XP guests from VirtualBox to VMWare Workstation 12 Player Linux 64-bit following a Sysprep process - adding this option to my .vmx file fixed an issue where the mouse pointer was stuck in a single place on the screen and couldn't move. After adding this line the mouse was working again.
    – Pabru
    Jun 4, 2016 at 0:22
1

For me, I had to add mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE"to my virtual machine (.vmx) file

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0

If you are using dual graphics cards, the warning implies that the independent graphics card is not available for VMware. Setting mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers indeed solves the problem, but a better way to solve this is to run VMware via:

optirun /usr/bin/vmware

Or, for convenience, you can change your .desktop file and use /usr/bin/optirun /usr/bin/vmware %U as the command.

This solution provides better performance.

See https://www.tiger2doudou.com/doku.php?id=linux:tools:virtualize:vmware_3d_hw_acceleration_with_bumblebee

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on Debian 10 we face the some problem, we solve it by adding the mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE" to the vkx file

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For me (Ubuntu 18.04, Intel graphic, VMware v16, Windows10), to activate 3D acceleration it was necessary to add mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE". I have choosed to add this to my virtual machine (.vmx) file.

Without this, if 3D acc. is activated, W10 login screen, text and icons on popup notification and menus are totally not readable! All works fine if 3D acc. is not activated

After some hours : eclipse repeatedly freeze while debugging java application, task manager : csrss.exe process consuming #10% CPU. 3D acc. disactivated => same problem mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE" deleted => OK

So don't use mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE"

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