Donk Posted December 9, 2014 Author Share Posted December 9, 2014 Important limitation found by MSoK. During some private testing it has been found the virtual hardware 11 won't work with OS X guests and causes a core dump of vmare-vmx process. It does work with virtual hardware 10 compatibility. This is not an unlocker problem but something in the VMware code which differs between Workstation and Fusion. We continue to investigate the issue. I hope everyone will be OK with this for now, and we can go ahead with release within next 24-48 hours. OK there are 2 implementations of virtual SMC in the code. Version 0 is IO port mapped, whilst version 1 is memory mapped (as in more modern Apples macs). HW 11 changes from 0 to 1 and the problem is seen. Add in "smc.version = 0" to VMX file fixes the problem. Will have to look into this as tried on Tech Preview and all worked. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hundley Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Important limitation found by MSoK. During some private testing it has been found the virtual hardware 11 won't work with OS X guests and causes a core dump of vmare-vmx process. It does work with virtual hardware 10 compatibility. This is not an unlocker problem but something in the VMware code which differs between Workstation and Fusion. We continue to investigate the issue. I hope everyone will be OK with this for now, and we can go ahead with release within next 24-48 hours. Will this limitation affect some of the advantages of Workstation 11, such as the ability to allocate more vram to the guest? I'm curious what the performance is looking like for Yosemite in 11... like many people, I'm hoping for improved graphics performance in OS X. Can we expect Zenith432's graphics driver to be effective (or even necessary?) in Yosemite, or perhaps look forward to an update? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebus Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 I'm curious what the performance is looking like for Yosemite in 11... like many people, I'm hoping for improved graphics performance in OS X. Can we expect Zenith432's graphics driver to be effective (or even necessary?) in Yosemite, or perhaps look forward to an update? It runs, it is OK, it does not have acceleration, unlikely to have, Zenith432's graphics driver was (I believe) "retired", due to a "better" driver in Fusion 7.0.1 (which is still only OK) sebus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSoK Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Zenith432 has officially retired his VMsvga2 driver in favour of the latest VMwareGfx.kext driver supplied with the VMware Tools for Fusion 7, latest version 7.1.0. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/188962-vmware-svga-ii-display-driver-for-os-x-v125/?p=2058301 Link below to the latest VMware Tools for Fusion: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/31-vmware-tools-for-os-x-darwiniso/ Please be aware this still only supports 2D-acceleration, so QE/CI is not supported, and since OS X is becoming more dependent on accelerated graphics performance in a virtual machine is degraded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hundley Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 If OS X VMs must be run with virtual hardware 10, does that mean we can only use existing VMs brought over from WS10? And if that is the case, does it still allow for allocating more vram to the guest? Maybe simply allocating more vram isn't enough to improve Yosemite's experience significantly, but my understanding was that the 128mb vram was the main bottleneck under WS10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebus Posted December 10, 2014 Share Posted December 10, 2014 And who says it "must" be run with virtual hardware 10? As Donk said, add "smc.version = 0" to VMX file (fixes the problem) Bottleneck is no 3D acceleration 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donk Posted December 11, 2014 Author Share Posted December 11, 2014 And who says it "must" be run with virtual hardware 10? As Donk said, add "smc.version = 0" to VMX file (fixes the problem) Bottleneck is no 3D acceleration Exactly! The differences from HW10 to 11 from release notes: VMware Hardware Version 11 Hardware versions introduce new virtual hardware functionality and new features while enabling VMware to run legacy operating systems in virtual machines. New features included in this hardware version: New CPU enablement, including Intel Haswell microarchitecture extension support.Workstation 11 is optimized to take advantage of new Haswell extensions, delivering up to 45% improvement in CPU-intensive operations like multimedia, encryption/decryption, and other strenuous performance tests. Updated xHCI controller Updated NDIS drive Post by a core VMware engineer on vCPU changes https://communities.vmware.com/message/2456799 None of this will affect graphics acceleration or VRAM usage of the VMware SVGA2 virtual GPU. Let's be clear, all the unlocker does is add some text and patch some bytes to enable OS X to boot. It cannot make things run faster or improve graphics and audio. That requires drivers to be delivered to the virtual hardware chassis. Now for the status or lack of update! My day job is taking precedence for a couple of days. I will release the unlocker with the limitation on HW 11 that you need to change the VMX to use V0 SMC. I will go back and see what has happened between Tech Preview and the release, as V1 SMC worked for me when I tried it in the preview. I will also put what I have on GitHub when ready. Perhaps some other people would like to help me out. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cb4 Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Mucho thanks for longstanding efforts Donk I have benefited from your work and want to help - no need to shoulder the burden yourself. At this point it looks like v11 is almost done, but my offer is good now and for the future. I can assist in development or use my 20+ years of software quality assurance experience to test. I can't help until after Monday, though. Big research paper due Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Xtreme Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Mucho thanks for longstanding efforts Donk I have benefited from your work and want to help Well said, same here. Thanks again Donk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CornerSkyless Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Thanks Donk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebus Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Donk is putting back the bits that Vmware took out! Basically correcting the crippled product Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forge64 Posted December 11, 2014 Share Posted December 11, 2014 Good call on github, it's always nice to have the ability to more easily submit changes and hopefully help out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hundley Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 I'm looking forward to seeing what Donk et al. have accomplished - I rely heavily on my OS X vm, but all projects are on hold until the new unlocker is complete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11Al Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 I'm looking forward to seeing what Donk et al. have accomplished - I rely heavily on my OS X vm, but all projects are on hold until the new unlocker is complete There is always the Workstation 10, which runs fine OS X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Xtreme Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 Or get VBox . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donk Posted December 12, 2014 Author Share Posted December 12, 2014 It will be released tomorrow, with the limitations already mentioned. Might as well get it out now, as there are workarounds for the current issues. I will start a new topic for it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Xtreme Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 OK can't wait . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donk Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 It has been uploaded but have to wait for admins to authorise release. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSoK Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 It has been uploaded but have to wait for admins to authorise release. Donk, Excellent, and congratulations on 2000 posts on InsanelyMac, thanks for all the continued help and support over the last 8 years. Cheers, MSoK. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valued17 Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 It has been uploaded but have to wait for admins to authorise release. cant wait. Thanks for your wonderful 2000 posts on this forum From where can i download it once its authorised by admins ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIXin Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 cant wait. Thanks for your wonderful 2000 posts on this forum From where can i download it once its authorised by admins ? Already here http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/339-unlocker/ . 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyimran Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 Can somebody brief on workstation 10 Vs workstation 11 any performance gains on guest Mavericks/Yosemite on windows 7 host? I experienced very slow gui on workstation 10 yosemite (upgraded from Mavericks) guest. Is unlocker 2.0 now available to download? please post the link. or wait yet? All the thanks to Donk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snhirsch Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 I noticed that 10.6 Snow Leopard is not yet supported (server check isn't bypassed). What are the prospects for this? Does it look solveable? I was foolish enough to upgrade and am now locked out of my Snow Leopard VM. Cannot roll back to VMware WS10 since all the Windows VMs have had their virtual hardware updated - unless there's a way to revert the virtual hardware? Or alternately, is there a way to install multple versions of VMware on the same host? Googled for this and turned up nothing. Either way, I'm not complaining and wanted to thank Donk for his wonderful work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebus Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 1) No 2) You should have kept full backup, but I am sure you can just re-create VM as hardware 10 & just point to the disk 3) No Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besweeet Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 Installed the unlocker. Made a WS11 VM for 10.10. Boots (takes a fair amount of time, like in WS10 -- 10.8.x with Chameleon is fast -- can't get any third-party bootloader to work with 10.10 or 10.9 still). Mouse movement is perfect. Frame rate of everything else is between 3-5. Same with a WS10 10.10 VM upgraded to WS11. It's not unusable, but it's pretty limiting with what you're able to do comfortably. Fortunately, my only use for the VM is to use iMessage and Tweetbot (both work fine in my 10.8.3 VM), and now SMS/MMS support in Yosemite. Added my MacBook Air's ROM and MLB to the VMX (as noted here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/292170-how-to-spoof-real-mac-in-vmware/page-3?do=findComment&comment=2084783), got a registration code, gave it to Apple, and bam. iMessage works, but text message forwarding does not (my Yosemite VM brings up the 6-digit code to enter into my iPhone, which I did, but nothing else happens) (never mind... it eventually worked). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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