Setting 4k resolution for VMWare guest

[aziz]

I recently acquired a thinkpad with a 4k screen. I have a OS/2 vm in the latest and greatest VMWare Workstation (which is nowadays free of charge for personal use). However I cannot find a way to make my full screen resolution available to the guest VM. I tried editing the vmx file, but the darn thing keeps reverting to 16MB of graphical memory, which obvious is not enough for 3840x2160. Most pages on the web advice to install VMWare tools in similar circumstances, however they are not available for OS/2.

Anyone got any clues on how to solve this problem?

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello Aziz

I don't have experience with that resolutions (I don't have 4K Monitor at hand) and VMWare Workstation Pro. Since "VMWare Workstation Pro" was released free for Personal use this year, it is on my list to try it with ArcaOS.

- Which version of VMWare Workstation Pro are you using? According to some online info since version 17.5.2 Build 23775571 it was optimized for 3840 x 2160
- Which version of OS/2 - ArcaOS are you installing?
- Is there any error message on OS/2 boot? or it is an error message when you try to start the VM?, Or there is no error, it just remains with the old resolution

Regards

[JTA]

I don't believe you'll get there with VMware Workstation as the virtualization platform, as VMware does not provide "guest tools" for OS/2 or ArcaOS. For what can be done within VMware, look at ArcaOS's page:

arcanoae.com/wiki/arcaos/installation-planning/virtual-machine-configuration/

If you switch to VirtualBox (free from Oracle), they do provide a reasonable set of guest tools, and these should work for ArcaOS (they did in my testing). Furthermore, these additional web pages discuss "the blonde guy's" efforts for video improvements under ArcaOS, and additional ArcaOS tweaks for VirtualBox. Perhaps these will get you closer:

blondeguy.com/computer/sodium.html  (which then refers to another ArcaOS page)
arcanoae.com/wiki/arcaos/post-install-tips-hints/other-oracle-vm-virtualbox-tweaks/

ArcaOS will provide the guest tools when you install ArcaOS under VirtualBox ... if you're instead running Warp or thereabouts under VirtualBox, you'll need to hunt down the older VirtualBox guest tools for OS/2, provided by NetLabs.org, at:

trac.netlabs.org/vbox

Additionally, there are further tweaks out there to use Virtualbox tools to manage GPU settings in a vm (if Windows is the Host OS) ... something like:

vboxmanage modifyvm "YourVMName" --vram 256

and pointing Virtualbox.exe at a dedicated Nvidia display adapter. I have only lightly tested some of this, and I did manage to get a VM with improved graphics capability, but I didn't test a bunch of cases. Hopefully, the internet will provide those tweak explanations for you. Again, that's with Virtualbox, which does have a level of guest tools support for OS/2 and ArcaOS.

Hope this helps ...

[Lars]

trac.netlabs.org/vbox

is the Virtualbox implementation for OS/2 as the host.

The Windows host Virtualbox implementation contains the very same OS/2 addons as those provided by ArcaOS, including the file system driver to access files on the host from within the OS/2 guest.

[Dave Yeo]

The Windows host Virtualbox implementation contains the very same OS/2 addons as those provided by ArcaOS, including the file system driver to access files on the host from within the OS/2 guest.

Doesn't the OS/2 addons installed on Windows/Linux come with an old libc? I"d assume the ArcaOS addons don't install libc

[Lars]

The Windows host Virtualbox implementation contains the very same OS/2 addons as those provided by ArcaOS, including the file system driver to access files on the host from within the OS/2 guest.

Doesn't the OS/2 addons installed on Windows/Linux come with an old libc? I"d assume the ArcaOS addons don't install libc

I simply never install that old libc version (I maintain libc via ANPM, installed in the guest).
I only ever install the base additions (VBOXMOUSE.SYS etc.), the GENGRADD DLL (where that might even be unnecessary) and VBOXFS.IFS.

[aziz]

Please refrain from discussing VirtualBox in this topic. I am fully aware that there are other options to virtualize OS/2. However you can only run one HyperVisor upon a time, so it would be very beneficial if I could get this working with VMWare, which offers other benefits for different platforms.

[aziz]

- Which version of VMWare Workstation Pro are you using? According to some online info since version 17.5.2 Build 23775571 it was optimized for 3840 x 2160

17.5.2 build-23775571
The latest one

- Which version of OS/2 - ArcaOS are you installing?

This affects all versions

- Is there any error message on OS/2 boot? or it is an error message when you try to start the VM?, Or there is no error, it just remains with the old resolution

There is no error message anywhere. It is just impossible to select any resolution above 1920x1440. When you peak into the vmx file, the video memory gets each time put back to 16M, regardless of efforts to increase the video memory.

[JTA]

On VMware's product (support) site, you can find notes like:

"Only Workstation 6.x and later virtual machines support specifying resolution settings and setting the number of monitors that the guest operating system can use."

I couldn't determine if lack of OS/2 guest tools is what blocks the .vmx file settings from taking place, or if your VM "machine type" (what VMware officially supports for an OS/2 VM) is the problem. If you can't change the machine type, perhaps you can invoke VMware support, through their forums or whatever route is open to you.

For a virtualization platform to not have guest tools support for an OS spoke volumes to me as to what the overall level of support for that OS was going to be like. Diminishing over time at best, and it's been awhile since VMware had support for OS/2.

While I use VMware Workstation and Virtualbox at the same time on my computer (both are type 2's hypervisors, and each running a VM), perhaps there is some condition I've not found yet, where they both can't run without interfering with each other ... interesting.

Hope this helps ...