docs/vmware-guest.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
   2 <html lang="en">
   3 <head>
   4   <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
   5   <title>VMware SVGA3D Guest Driver</title>
   6   <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css">
   7 </head>
   8 <body>
   9
  10 <div class="header">
  11   The Mesa 3D Graphics Library
  12 </div>
  13
  14 <iframe src="contents.html"></iframe>
  15 <div class="content">
  16
  17 <h1>VMware SVGA3D Guest Driver</h1>
  18
  19 <p>
  20 This page describes how to build, install and use the
  21 <a href="https://www.vmware.com/">VMware</a> guest GL driver
  22 (aka the SVGA or SVGA3D driver) for Linux using the latest source code.
  23 This driver gives a Linux virtual machine access to the host's GPU for
  24 hardware-accelerated 3D.
  25 VMware Workstation running on Linux or Windows and VMware Fusion running on
  26 MacOS are all supported.
  27 </p>
  28
  29 <p>
  30 With the August 2015 Workstation 12 / Fusion 8 releases, OpenGL 3.3
  31 is supported in the guest.
  32 This requires:
  33 </p>
  34 <ul>
  35 <li>The VM is configured for virtual hardware version 12.
  36 <li>The host OS, GPU and graphics driver supports DX11 (Windows) or
  37     OpenGL 4.0 (Linux, Mac)
  38 <li>On Linux, the vmwgfx kernel module must be version 2.9.0 or later.
  39 <li>A recent version of Mesa with the updated svga gallium driver.
  40 </ul>
  41
  42 <p>
  43 Otherwise, OpenGL 2.1 is supported.
  44 </p>
  45
  46 <p>
  47 With the Fall 2018 Workstation 15 / Fusion 11 releases, additional
  48 features are supported in the driver:
  49 <ul>
  50 <li>Multisample antialiasing (2x, 4x)
  51 <li>GL_ARB/AMD_draw_buffers_blend
  52 <li>GL_ARB_sample_shading
  53 <li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map_array
  54 <li>GL_ARB_texture_gather
  55 <li>GL_ARB_texture_query_lod
  56 <li>GL_EXT/OES_draw_buffers_indexed
  57 </ul>
  58 <p>
  59 This requires version 2.15.0 or later of the vmwgfx kernel module and
  60 the VM must be configured for hardware version 16 or later.
  61 </p>
  62
  63 <p>
  64 OpenGL 3.3 support can be disabled by setting the environment variable
  65 SVGA_VGPU10=0.
  66 You will then have OpenGL 2.1 support.
  67 This may be useful to work around application bugs (such as incorrect use
  68 of the OpenGL 3.x core profile).
  69 </p>
  70
  71 <p>
  72 Most modern Linux distros include the SVGA3D driver so end users shouldn't
  73 be concerned with this information.
  74 But if your distro lacks the driver or you want to update to the latest code
  75 these instructions explain what to do.
  76 </p>
  77
  78 <p>
  79 For more information about the X components see these wiki pages at x.org:
  80 </p>
  81 <ul>
  82 <li><a href="https://wiki.x.org/wiki/vmware">
  83 Driver Overview</a>
  84 <li><a href="https://wiki.x.org/wiki/vmware/vmware3D">
  85 xf86-video-vmware Details</a>
  86 </ul>
  87
  88
  89 <h2>Components</h2>
  90
  91 The components involved in this include:
  92 <ul>
  93 <li>Linux kernel module: vmwgfx
  94 <li>X server 2D driver: xf86-video-vmware
  95 <li>User-space libdrm library
  96 <li>Mesa/gallium OpenGL driver: "svga"
  97 </ul>
  98
  99 <p>
 100 All of these components reside in the guest Linux virtual machine.
 101 On the host, all you're doing is running VMware
 102 <a href="https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/">Workstation</a> or
 103 <a href="https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/">Fusion</a>.
 104 </p>
 105
 106
 107 <h2>Prerequisites</h2>
 108
 109 <ul>
 110 <li>Kernel version at least 2.6.25
 111 <li>Xserver version at least 1.7
 112 <li>Ubuntu: For ubuntu you need to install a number of build dependencies.
 113   <pre>
 114   sudo apt-get install git-core
 115   sudo apt-get install ninja-build meson libpthread-stubs0-dev
 116   sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev libx11-xcb-dev
 117   sudo apt-get install libxcb-glx0-dev libxrender-dev
 118   sudo apt-get build-dep libgl1-mesa-dri libxcb-glx0-dev
 119   </pre>
 120 <li>Fedora: For Fedora you also need to install a number of build dependencies.
 121   <pre>
 122   sudo yum install mesa-libGL-devel xorg-x11-server-devel xorg-x11-util-macros
 123   sudo yum install libXrender-devel.i686
 124   sudo yum install ninja-build meson gcc expat-devel kernel-devel git-core
 125   sudo yum install makedepend flex bison
 126   </pre>
 127 </ul>
 128
 129 <p>
 130 Depending on your Linux distro, other packages may be needed.
 131 Meson should tell you what's missing.
 132 </p>
 133
 134
 135
 136 <h2>Getting the Latest Source Code</h2>
 137
 138 Begin by saving your current directory location:
 139   <pre>
 140   export TOP=$PWD
 141   </pre>
 142
 143 <ul>
 144 <li>Mesa/Gallium master branch. This code is used to build libGL, and the direct rendering svga driver for libGL, vmwgfx_dri.so, and the X acceleration library libxatracker.so.x.x.x.
 145   <pre>
 146   git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa.git
 147   </pre>
 148 <li>VMware Linux guest kernel module. Note that this repo contains the complete DRM and TTM code. The vmware-specific driver is really only the files prefixed with vmwgfx.
 149   <pre>
 150   git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/mesa/vmwgfx
 151   </pre>
 152 <li>libdrm, a user-space library that interfaces with drm.
 153 Most distros ship with this but it's safest to install a newer version.
 154 To get the latest code from git:
 155   <pre>
 156   git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm.git
 157   </pre>
 158 <li>xf86-video-vmware. The chainloading driver, vmware_drv.so, the legacy driver vmwlegacy_drv.so, and the vmwgfx driver vmwgfx_drv.so.
 159   <pre>
 160   git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/driver/xf86-video-vmware
 161   </pre>
 162 </ul>
 163
 164
 165 <h2>Building the Code</h2>
 166
 167 <ul>
 168 <li>
 169 <p>
 170 Determine where the GL-related libraries reside on your system and set
 171 the LIBDIR environment variable accordingly.
 172 </p>
 173 For 32-bit Ubuntu systems:
 174 <pre>
 175   export LIBDIR=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
 176 </pre>
 177 For 64-bit Ubuntu systems:
 178 <pre>
 179   export LIBDIR=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
 180 </pre>
 181 For 32-bit Fedora systems:
 182 <pre>
 183   export LIBDIR=/usr/lib
 184 </pre>
 185 For 64-bit Fedora systems:
 186 <pre>
 187   export LIBDIR=/usr/lib64
 188 </pre>
 189
 190 </li>
 191
 192 <li>Build libdrm:
 193   <pre>
 194   cd $TOP/drm
 195   meson builddir --prefix=/usr --libdir=${LIBDIR}
 196   ninja -C builddir
 197   sudo ninja -C builddir install
 198   </pre>
 199 <li>
 200 <p>Build Mesa and the vmwgfx_dri.so driver, the vmwgfx_drv.so xorg driver, the X acceleration library libxatracker.
 201 The vmwgfx_dri.so is used by the OpenGL libraries during direct rendering,
 202 and by the Xorg server during accelerated indirect GL rendering.
 203 The libxatracker library is used exclusively by the X server to do render,
 204 copy and video acceleration:
 205 </p>
 206
 207 The following configure options doesn't build the EGL system.
 208   <pre>
 209   cd $TOP/mesa
 210   meson builddir --prefix=/usr --libdir=${LIBDIR} -Dgallium-drivers=svga -Ddri-drivers=swrast -Dgallium-xa=true -Ddri3=false
 211   ninja -C builddir
 212   sudo ninja -C builddir install
 213   </pre>
 214
 215 <p>
 216 Note that you may have to install other packages that Mesa depends upon
 217 if they're not installed in your system.  You should be told what's missing.
 218 </p>
 219
 220 <li>xf86-video-vmware: Now, once libxatracker is installed, we proceed with
 221 building and replacing the current Xorg driver.
 222 First check if your system is 32- or 64-bit.
 223   <pre>
 224   cd $TOP/xf86-video-vmware
 225   ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --libdir=${LIBDIR}
 226   make
 227   sudo make install
 228   </pre>
 229
 230 <li>vmwgfx kernel module. First make sure that any old version of this kernel module is removed from the system by issuing
 231 <pre>
 232   sudo rm /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/vmwgfx.ko*
 233 </pre>
 234 Build and install:
 235 <pre>
 236   cd $TOP/vmwgfx
 237   make
 238   sudo make install
 239   sudo depmod -a
 240 </pre>
 241 If you're using a Ubuntu OS:
 242 <pre>
 243   sudo update-initramfs -u
 244 </pre>
 245 If you're using a Fedora OS:
 246 <pre>
 247   sudo dracut --force
 248 </pre>
 249 Add 'vmwgfx' to the /etc/modules file:
 250 <pre>
 251   echo vmwgfx | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
 252 </pre>
 253
 254 Note: some distros put DRM kernel drivers in different directories.
 255 For example, sometimes vmwgfx.ko might be found in
 256 <code>/lib/modules/{version}/extra/vmwgfx.ko</code> or in
 257 <code>/lib/modules/{version}/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/vmwgfx/vmwgfx.ko</code>.
 258 <p>
 259 After installing vmwgfx.ko you might want to run the following command to
 260 check that the new kernel module is in the expected place:
 261 <pre>
 262   find /lib/modules -name vmwgfx.ko -exec ls -l '{}' \;
 263 </pre>
 264 If you see the kernel module listed in more than one place, you may need to
 265 move things around.
 266 <p>
 267 Finally, if you update your kernel you'll probably have to rebuild and
 268 reinstall the vmwgfx.ko module again.
 269 </ul>
 270
 271
 272 Now try to load the kernel module by issuing
 273   <pre>
 274   sudo modprobe vmwgfx</pre>
 275 Then type
 276   <pre>
 277   dmesg</pre>
 278 to watch the debug output. It should contain a number of lines prefixed with "[vmwgfx]".
 279
 280 <p>
 281 Then restart the Xserver (or reboot).
 282 The lines starting with "vmwlegacy" or "VMWARE" in the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log
 283 should now have been replaced with lines starting with "vmwgfx", indicating that
 284 the new Xorg driver is in use.
 285 </p>
 286
 287
 288 <h2>Running OpenGL Programs</h2>
 289
 290 <p>
 291 In a shell, run 'glxinfo' and look for the following to verify that the
 292 driver is working:
 293 </p>
 294
 295 <pre>
 296 OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
 297 OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on SVGA3D; build: RELEASE;
 298 OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0
 299 </pre>
 300
 301 <p>
 302 If you don't see this, try setting this environment variable:
 303   <pre>
 304   export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose</pre>
 305 <p>
 306 then rerun glxinfo and examine the output for error messages.
 307 </p>
 308
 309 <p>
 310 If OpenGL 3.3 is not working (you only get OpenGL 2.1):
 311 </p>
 312 <ul>
 313 <li>Make sure the VM uses hardware version 12.
 314 <li>Make sure the vmwgfx kernel module is version 2.9.0 or later.
 315 <li>Check the vmware.log file for errors.
 316 <li>Run 'dmesg | grep vmwgfx' and look for "DX: yes".
 317 </ul>
 318
 319 </div>
 320 </body>
 321 </html>