OS X in VMware Workstation: Misc Issues

[sstur]

Thanks to this forum and the work of Nietsnie and Donk it has become a realistic possibility to run OS X virtualized and even use it as a day to day workstation.

 

I have successfully installed several versions of Snow Leopard (10.6.2 - 10.6.4) under VMware Workstation 7.1 and the performance is very impressive (Host Laptop: i7 Quad; 4GB; XP Pro x64).

 

Great news for developers and those trying to ease a transition to Mac. We can still run IIS / SQL Server and yet enjoy one of the industry's best operating systems with all its underlying Unix goodness.

 

I've noticed a few drawbacks, however, especially coming from running Windows virtualized prior to OS X. I'd like to get other people's feedback as well as use this forum to share solutions and performance tips.

 

For example: video acceleration. Scrolling and moving windows around performs stunningly well, but video overlay (flash video for instance) looks horrible (blocky, choppy).

 

And does anyone know of a good way to force OS X to a non-standard resolution (in my case 1600x900). The VMware tools sometimes can get this resolution when "guest auto resize" is turned on, but it's flaky at best.

 

Power management seems a bit spotty too. Any one have experience with this?

 

Cheers,

Simon

[Donk]

Thanks to this forum and the work of Nietsnie and Donk it has become a realistic possibility to run OS X virtualized and even use it as a day to day workstation.

 

I have successfully installed several versions of Snow Leopard (10.6.2 - 10.6.4) under VMware Workstation 7.1 and the performance is very impressive (Host Laptop: i7 Quad; 4GB; XP Pro x64).

 

Great news for developers and those trying to ease a transition to Mac. We can still run IIS / SQL Server and yet enjoy one of the industry's best operating systems with all its underlying Unix goodness.

 

I've noticed a few drawbacks, however, especially coming from running Windows virtualized prior to OS X. I'd like to get other people's feedback as well as use this forum to share solutions and performance tips.

 

For example: video acceleration. Scrolling and moving windows around performs stunningly well, but video overlay (flash video for instance) looks horrible (blocky, choppy).

 

And does anyone know of a good way to force OS X to a non-standard resolution (in my case 1600x900). The VMware tools sometimes can get this resolution when "guest auto resize" is turned on, but it's flaky at best.

 

Power management seems a bit spotty too. Any one have experience with this?

 

Cheers,

Simon

 

Well the bad news is that there is no video acceleration for Mac OS X guests as the drivers don't exist to enable it. So if you intend to use it for serious video or audio work you are going to be out of luck.

 

You can try adding this line to the VMX file to force the guest to fit host dimensions at start.

 

svga.fitHostDimensions = "TRUE"

 

Power issues are well known and even VMware acknowledge them. Advice is for you to disable:

 

1. Screensaver

2. All power options to "Never"

3. Disable sleep

4. Install and run Caffeine application (Google should find it)