Monterey host, Sonoma or Sequoia guest?

[davewuk]

I've mostly used this project so far in Windows, but I also have an old Macbook Pro 2015 running Monterey which is the last supported OS for this device. I understand that VMware Fusion, since Big Sur, has some support for Paravirtualised graphics acceleration, and I wanted to check:

1. As I understand it, VMware Fusion Pro 13 is the last version I can install on Monterey, and it's also the first free version. I have a copy of v13.6.4 - will this support paravirtualised graphics in Big Sur and Monterey guests?

2. Can I install unsupported newer versions of MacOS using OC4VM on this laptop? I'd like to run a Sequoia VM with full paravirtualised graphics if possible, maybe even Tahoe as and when support is available.

3. I also have MacOS Sonoma on this machine via OCLP. From the docs I think this wouldn't be a supported configuration to get paravirtualised graphics working?

My macbook pro has the AMD GPU, in case that makes a difference.

[DrDonk]

1. I think you are right it's VMware Fusion 13 for Monterey and yes that should support the AppleGPU settings.
2. You will have to try the AppleGPU settings as I do not have anything to test this on currently. You could use OC4VM but Fusion should be able to run macOS without it. Do not worry about the guestOS setting sin the VM pick Big Sur and all should work. I checked around and it actually make little to no difference setting it to Big Sur for a Sequoia VM.
3. OCLP and later versions of macOS do not support AppleGPU but I cannot find exactly where that was broken. You can run macOS in Fusion on an OCLP installation as I do but I have to use the VMware frame buffer driver. If you do go that route you will need to add this to either the VMX file or ~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/config.

mks.mtl.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE"

[davewuk]

Thanks for the tips. It looks like I'm really short of disk space on my Monterey install - I don't even have room for Mist to download the Sequoia installer and create the ISO file at the moment.

I'm going to move it all to an external drive later and see how far I can get.

[davewuk]

OK, I was able to get a Sequoia guest running with paravirtualised graphics on a Monterey host. It's running from an external drive right now due to lack of disk space so the performance isn't great but the GPU acceleration is working.

First screenshot is the proof - for some reason it won't show the "About" section of system settings (don't know why) but system profiler confirms anyway. The MacOS GUI is reasonably responsive, metal wallpapers are working. Felt a bit a bit laggy in Retina resolution maybe?

The lines I had to add to the VMX file to make it work are shown highlighted in the second screenshot. I didn't need to force the vmware metal renderer, it is supported natively in Monterey on my Macbook Pro as you can see in the MKS sandbox log (also shown in the second screenshot).

If anyone else cares to try, be aware that only vmware fusion version 13.5.2 seems to be supported in Monterey. Also, sometimes you won't see the OC bootpicker at startup, only a white screen. I found that changing to fullscreen before starting the VM seems to help with that.

I'm curious to find out, after lunch, if Tahoe will install and work now 😂

[DrDonk]

Excellent. I may go and try this out on a hacked up MacBook Air motherboard I've just found. The About box does not work for me but the System Profiler gives you all the data you need.

Good luck with Tahoe.

[davewuk]

I think what I'm going to do first is move the VM to a separate external disk and then try booting it in a newer version of vmware fusion, see if I can't get it working a bit better. I have Sonoma (via OCLP) installed on the internal drive, going to give that a go.

Will try Tahoe later after I've finished mucking about 😂

EDIT: Nothing good to report from Sonoma. I can get the metal renderer to work, I can get the paravirtualised adapter to be detected, but it cannot start 3D acceleration and the VM only has a black screen before locking up and have to force quit.

[DrDonk]

So I checked and the paravirtualized GPU is broken with OCLP from Sonoma. It will work with the older VMware driver with the setting I gave you, but no fancy effects. IF you use Tahoe without AppleGPU use the solarium script in the latest OC4VM tools. It disables all the Liquid (Gl)ASS stuff.

[davewuk]

Yeah I'm pretty much on the same page now. I'm going to shrink the VM disk and make a backup before letting it upgrade to Tahoe. I'm interested to see if the paravirtualised GPU will work and what kind of liquid glass effects I'm going to get (if any) when it is active. For now I'm keeping on Monterey as host though.

[davewuk]

OK so in case there is any interest in trying this:

1. Using OC4VM I created a Sequoia VM in VMware Fusion 13.5.2, running on a Monterey host. After editing the VMX file to force it to use the Apple GPU, I was able to get paravirtualised graphics working. The GUI performance is pretty good, far better than the alternative (software graphics emulation).

2. I tested the Sequoia VM in VMware Fusion 26H1 running on Sonoma via OCLP on the same mac, but paravirtualised graphics did not work, even with the VMX edit suggested. The metal renderer does seem to work, but it doesn't help in this case.

3. I attempted to update the VM to Tahoe but the install failed. I also tried a clean install, and the install also failed. It just seems to hang about half way after the first reboot. I restarted the installer several times but never managed to get it to go any further.

The necessary VMX edits are as follows:

1. To enable paravirtualised graphics, add the following lines to the VMX file:

svga.present="FALSE"
appleGPU0.present="TRUE"
appleGPU0.screen0.width = "1440"
appleGPU0.screen0.height = "900"

After the first run, the following line will be automatically added to the VMX file:

appleGPU0.pciSlotNumber = "224"
(I guess the actual setting will depend on your Mac, but it will show as "-1" if the AppleGPU is unavailable)

2. To enable the Metal renderer in VMware Fusion under OCLP:

mks.mtl.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE"

Note that this will enable graphics acceleration with the svga virtual GPU in linux and Windows guests. Not sure if this is needed or if it will work with a non-metal GPU. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, allow paravirtualised graphics to work in MacOS guests.

Important Notes:

1. The OCLP boot picker is not visible when using paravirtualised graphics, the VM will just show a white screen until it reaches the point in the boot process where the GPU is started. If you've seen the full-screen glitch that happens with software rendering you'll know what I mean.

2. For some reason "About this Mac" and the "About" section in settings don't work.

3. Desktop Widgets don't work, maybe other things.

[DrDonk]

I will take a look at the OC boot picker, maybe there is a tweak to the configuration that will make it work.

The line

mks.mtl.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE"

enables VMware guest output on a Metal equipped Mac when using OCLP. If you do not add the line all VMs just have a black screen.

[davewuk]

enables VMware guest output on a Metal equipped Mac when using OCLP

I found that it would stop the VM from booting if this line is present on native MacOS, like the Monterey install on my MBP 2015 and had to take it out after testing in Sonoma. I guess I could try spinning up a Linux VM and see if I can get graphics acceleration going in Sonoma, maybe a job for another day :-)

[DrDonk]

Good to know about the effect on non-OCLP Macs.

[davewuk]

Setting it to "FALSE" will also allow the VM to boot. So it can be left in, if the VM is to be shared between multiple OSes but I don't see that as a common use case. It's also possible to switch back to software rendering at any time by re-enabling the svga virtual GPU and disabling the Apple paravirtualised GPU just by editing true to false.

It might be useful to have a section for "custom" settings like these in the VMX file? to keep them separate from the auto-generated jumble at the end? probably would make my life easier too when the VMX needs to be updated when there's a new version.

[DrDonk]

I have a tool I wrote which is a superset of VMware's dicttool for managing VMX files (and other VMware key/value files). It is included in OC4VM but not the latest vmxtool release which will come with OC4VM 3.0.1. You can get the latest vmxtool release from its repo until I release OC4VM 3.0.1.

I am the only one to have used it so make sure you backup VMX file or take a copy to play with as it is pretty new. Also be aware that VMware messes blank lines when a snapshot is rolled back in VMX files. Sadly I cannot find a way to stop that happening.

I did more work on it so I can create proper OC4VM upgrade scripts if needed.

https://github.com/DrDonk/vmxtool

A tool to examine and modify VMware VMX configuration files.

BASIC COMMANDS:
    help                    Print this help message
    version                 Print version information
    print FILE              Print the contents of FILE
    query FILE KEY          Print the value for KEY
    add FILE KEY=VALUE      Add a new entry (fails if exists)
    set FILE KEY=VALUE      Set an entry (adds or updates)
    remove FILE KEY         Remove an entry

PREFIX OPERATIONS:
    add-prefix FILE KEY PREFIX
        Add PREFIX to the beginning of KEY

    remove-prefix FILE KEY PREFIX
        Remove PREFIX from the beginning of KEY

    remove-prefix-all FILE PREFIX
        Remove all entries with PREFIX

INSERTION COMMANDS:
    insert-comment-before FILE KEY COMMENT
        Insert a comment line before KEY

    insert-comment-after FILE KEY COMMENT
        Insert a comment line after KEY

    insert-blank-before FILE KEY [COUNT]
        Insert blank line(s) before KEY (default: 1)

    insert-blank-after FILE KEY [COUNT]
        Insert blank line(s) after KEY (default: 1)

REMOVAL COMMANDS:
    remove-comment-before FILE KEY
        Remove comment line immediately before KEY

    remove-comment-after FILE KEY
        Remove comment line immediately after KEY

    remove-blank-before FILE KEY [COUNT]
        Remove blank line(s) immediately before KEY (default: 1)

    remove-blank-after FILE KEY [COUNT]
        Remove blank line(s) immediately after KEY (default: 1)

    remove-all-comments FILE
        Remove all comment lines from the file

    remove-all-blanks FILE
        Remove all blank lines from the file

ORGANIZATION:
    sort FILE [--preserve-sections]
        Sort entries alphabetically

    group FILE PREFIX [--after KEY]
        Group all entries with PREFIX together

    add-section FILE KEY "SECTION NAME"
        Add a formatted section header before KEY

SEARCH & QUERY:
    list-keys FILE [--prefix PREFIX]
        List all keys, optionally filtered by prefix

    search FILE PATTERN [--values]
        Search for keys (or values with --values) matching PATTERN

    diff FILE1 FILE2
        Show differences between two files

    validate FILE
        Check for common issues (duplicates, empty values, etc.)

BULK OPERATIONS:
    rename FILE PATTERN REPLACEMENT
        Rename keys using regex (e.g., "serial(\d+)" "uart\1")

    comment FILE KEY
        Comment out an entry (disable without deleting)

    uncomment FILE KEY
        Uncomment a previously commented entry

    bulk-set FILE --from SOURCE
        Set multiple entries from SOURCE file or stdin (-)

IMPORT/EXPORT:
    export FILE --format FORMAT
        Export to json or yaml

    import FILE SOURCE [--format FORMAT]
        Import from json or yaml file

    extract FILE PATTERN --output OUTPUT
        Extract entries matching PATTERN to OUTPUT

    merge FILE1 FILE2 [--output OUTPUT] [--overwrite]
        Merge FILE2 into FILE1

    apply-template FILE TEMPLATE --var NAME=VALUE ...
        Apply TEMPLATE with variable substitution

OPTIONS:
    --backup                Create backup before modifying (for set/add/remove)

[davewuk]

I think this might be overkill for what I need. I'll probably just add another header section just like you did. The format looks straightforward enough so I guess something like this would work?

__Custom_settings__ = ""

If I put that before the header

__VMware_added_settings__ = ""

[DrDonk]

I tried Tahoe on a Monterey host and VMware Fusion 13.5.2. Using the AppleGPU worked and Liquid Glass was correctly displayed. This was on a MacBook Air 2017 with 8GB memory and the performance was terrible. So that is two reports on this working. I do disable a lot of things on Tahoe and indeed all my macOS VMs.

Here are some of the settings I use in a configure script I wrote and use when I configure a new macOS VM. There are other things I do but probably not recommended for general use such as passwordless sudo and auto login. The VMs I created are primarily for dev and test and so need to be easy to interact with, only on host-only netwrok, and not being used for anything general like using Apple services etc.

print "Configure Desktop appearance and function\n"
defaults write -g AppleShowScrollBars -string Always
defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false;
defaults write -g NSBrowserColumnAnimationSpeedMultiplier -float 0;
defaults write -g NSDocumentRevisionsWindowTransformAnimation -bool false;
defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false;
defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false;
defaults write -g NSToolbarFullScreenAnimationDuration -float 0;
defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float 0.001;
defaults write -g QLPanelAnimationDuration -float 0;
defaults write -g com.apple.SwiftUI.DisableSolarium -bool NO
defaults write -g com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool YES
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true;
defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool true;
defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -boolean NO
defaults write com.apple.WindowManager EnableStandardClickToShowDesktop -bool false
defaults write com.apple.WindowManager GloballyEnabled -bool false
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0;
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0;
defaults write com.apple.dock launchanim -bool false
defaults write com.apple.dock mineffect -string scale
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float 0;
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float 0;
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float 0;
defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true;
defaults write com.apple.tipds ConsecutiveNotificationsCount -int 0
defaults write com.apple.tipds TPSTipsAppInstalled -int 0
defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceMotion -bool true
defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency -bool true

[davewuk]

That's awesome. I'm actually taking delivery of an iMac 2017 in the next few days, will give it a try to see if I can replicate. Hopefully with four cores assigned and 8gb RAM will will perform tolerably well.

[davewuk]

A quick footnote to this. I finally managed to get Sonoma, Sequoia and Tahoe VMs working with paravirtualised graphics on my Macbook Pro 2015 (running MacOS Monterey and VMware Fusion 13), and my iMac 5k 2017 (running Ventura and VMware Fusion 26H1). I kept my VMX files as close to the OC4VM original as possible.

Sonoma and Sequioa run OK, though there are some oddities about resizing windows and the mouse getting stuck that I'm still trying to figure out. Tahoe starts up OK, but refuses to load any application or folder icons in Finder and hangs quite a lot - really it's just a complete bugfest.

All of them will complain about windowmanager crashes periodically when running with paravirtualised graphics. Unsurprisingly, the VMs are a lot more stable with software rendering.

EDIT: A footnote to the footnote!

I was able to get the three VMs working with paravirtualised graphics in a Sequoia OCLP install on the iMac 5k, but NOT in a Sonoma OCLP install on the Macbook Pro 2015.