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 de-
fault enable DRI, the Direct Rendering Infrastructure, primarily for ac-
celerated OpenGL. If 3D acceleration is available, the driver will in
addition provide an additional XVideo adaptor for textured video. Gal-
lium3D XA, "libxatracker.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 dri-
ver is using RandR12, this option should be used to place and en-
able outputs at driver startup time or else when VMware tools is
not used for that purpose. Also please see option "GuiLayout".
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 resolu-
tion 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 reading
from previously accelerated contents (3D or video). This option
is needed for 3D support. Default: on if 3D acceleration is sup-
ported. Otherwise off.
Option "DRI" "boolean"
Enable the Direct Rendering Infrastructure. Default: on if 3D ac-
celeration is supported and "RenderAccel" is enabled. Otherwise
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" application. Default: off.
SEE ALSO
Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5), Xserver(1), X(7), xrandr(1)
AUTHORS
Copyright (c) 1999-2007 VMware, Inc.
X Version 11 xf86-video-vmware 13.4.0 VMWARE(4)
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