Go to main content

man pages section 4: Device and Network Interfaces

Exit Print View

Updated: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
 
 

vmware (4)

Name

vmware - VMware SVGA video driver

Synopsis

Section "Device"
Identifier "devname"
Driver "vmware"
...
EndSection

Description

VMWARE(4)                  Kernel Interfaces Manual                  VMWARE(4)



NAME
       vmware - VMware SVGA video driver

SYNOPSIS
       Section "Device"
         Identifier "devname"
         Driver "vmware"
         ...
       EndSection

DESCRIPTION
       vmware is an Xorg driver for VMware virtual video cards.

MODESETTING, XINERAMA AND RANDR12
       If  the  driver  can connect to the "vmwgfx" kernel module on linux, it
       will attempt to use kernel modesetting and will then also  use  RandR12
       for  multiple output operation instead of Xinerama. The X server log or
       the "xrandr" application can be used to determine  whether  RandR12  or
       Xinerama is actually used.

3D ACCELERATION
       If  the  driver can connect to the "vmwgfx" kernel module on linux, and
       the Virtual Machine is set up to use 3D acceleration, the  driver  will
       try  to  use  Gallium3D XA to accelerate 3D operations. It will also by
       default enable DRI, the Direct Rendering Infrastructure, primarily  for
       accelerated  OpenGL.   If 3D acceleration is available, the driver will
       in addition provide an additional XVideo adaptor  for  textured  video.
       Gallium3D   XA,ibxatracker.so"   and  the  accelerated  OpenGL  driver,
       "vmwgfx_dri.so" is provided by the mesa distribution.

CONFIGURATION DETAILS
       Please refer to xorg.conf(5) for general configuration  details.   This
       section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.

       The driver auto-detects the version of any virtual VMware SVGA adapter.

       The following driver Options are supported:

       Option "HWCursor" "boolean"
              Enable or disable the HW cursor.  Default: off.

       Option "Xinerama" "boolean"
              Disable or enable Xinerama support. Default: xinerama is enabled
              if the hardware supports it.

       Option "StaticXinerama" "string"
              Provide a static xinerama geometry that will be active at server
              startup  and  will  not be overridden at runtime.  The format is
              "Width1xHeight1+Xoffset1+Yoffset1;Width2xHeight2+Xoffset2+Yoff-
              set2"  and  so  on.  Negative  offsets are not supported. If the
              driver is using RandR12, this option should be used to place and
              enable  outputs at driver startup time or else when VMware tools
              is not used for that purpose.  Also please see  option  "GuiLay-
              out".

       Option "GuiLayout" "string"
              A  synonym  to option "StaticXinerama", since the latter name is
              somewhat misleading when RandR12 is favoured before Xinerarma.

       Option "AddDefaultMode" "boolean"
              Provide a default mode with a resolution identical to the  reso-
              lution  of  the  guest  before  the  X server was started. The X
              server will thus  try  to  start  without  changing  resolution.
              Default: on.

       Option "RenderAccel" "boolean"
              Try  to accelerate render operations if the operations are read-
              ing from previously accelerated contents  (3D  or  video).  This
              option  is needed for 3D support. Default: on if 3D acceleration
              is supported. Otherwise off.

       Option "DRI" "boolean"
              Enable the Direct Rendering Infrastructure. Default:  on  if  3D
              acceleration  is  supported and "RenderAccel" is enabled. Other-
              wise off.

       Option "DirectPresents" "boolean"
              Speed up OpenGL swapbuffers by skipping a copy  operation.  This
              provides  some OpenGL swapbuffer speedups, but may cause perfor-
              mance degradation and rendering errors when 3D contents is  read
              back for mixing with software rendered contents. Default: off.

       Option "HwPresents" "boolean"
              This is a developer convenience option and should not be used by
              distros or normal users. When enabled, it copies  software  ren-
              dered contents to a 3D surface before presenting it, so that the
              visible screen is always present on a 3D surface. Default: off.

       Option "RenderCheck" "boolean"
              This is a developer convenience option and should not be used by
              distros or normal users. When enabled, it tries to use 3D accel-
              eration for all XRender operations where 3D acceleration is sup-
              ported,   resulting  in  a  considerable  slowdown  due  to  the
              increased number of readbacks of accelerated contents from  host
              to  guest.  This  option  is used to verify that the accelerated
              Xrender paths works correctly with  the  "rendercheck"  applica-
              tion. Default: off.



       ATTRIBUTES
              See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


              +---------------+------------------------------------------+
              |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |             ATTRIBUTE VALUE              |
              +---------------+------------------------------------------+
              |Availability   | x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-vmware |
              +---------------+------------------------------------------+
              |Stability      | Volatile                                 |
              +---------------+------------------------------------------+

SEE ALSO
       Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5), Xserver(1), X(7), xrandr(1)

AUTHORS
       Copyright (c) 1999-2007 VMware, Inc.



NOTES
       Source  code  for open source software components in Oracle Solaris can
       be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
       code-downloads.html.

       This     software     was    built    from    source    available    at
       https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland.   The  original   community
       source   was   downloaded   from    https://www.x.org/releases/individ-
       ual/driver/xf86-video-vmware-13.3.0.tar.bz2.

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at https://www.x.org.



X Version 11               xf86-video-vmware 13.3.0                  VMWARE(4)