Is VT-X required to run Mac osx? if so, why ?

[tecinv]

Hi there,
I haven't been able to run Mac OSX as guest on Virtualbox in 2 of my computers, only on the 3rd computer I succeeded. I found out that is probably because the 2 computers didn't have a CPU with VT-X support, and the 3rd had VT-X support. I didn't find anything in the Virtualbox 3.2.0 documentation about this limitation in the known issues section, or in any other place in the documentation.

Does Virtualbox require VT-X (hardware virtualization) in order to run Mac OSX as guest?
If so, why is this limitation, why can't it run also with software virtualization ?
Is it planned to remove this limitation for Mac OSX guests?
If so, when is it expected to be available?
If it is not planned, why not?

[Uzume]

Currently Mac OS X Server guest is supported and then only on Mac hardware (it should be regardless of host OS since one can run many things on Mac with Boot Camp).

All Intel-based Macs (required for vbox) support VT-x. The fact that you are trying to use Mac OS X guest support on a machine that does not have VT-x implies those machines were not Macs and thus are not a supported platform for vbox Mac OS X server guest support anyway.

[Perryg]

Uzume is correct.
Please read http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=31104

[paulscode]

There are a couple of instances where you could potentially have a VT-X related problem on Apple hardware as well.

1) If you are running an older intel mac where VT-X has been locked. Apple has a knowledgebase article outlining the problem and the firmware updates that are required to address it.

2) VT-X may be turned off in your EFI BIOS settings and need to be enabled.

If your computer is not Apple, you would probably have to install a "hackintosh" version, which is of course illegal unless you somehow could get written permission from Apple (not very likely they would give anyone permission to use a hacked version of their software).

[Technologov]

>Does Virtualbox require VT-X (hardware virtualization) in order to run Mac OSX as guest?

Yes it does.

The problem is that software virtualization in VirtualBox does not handle all the x86 instructions correctly, and the code is so complex that people don't want to introduce major changes into it. Mac guest uses some rare instructions that are not supported.

Hardware virtualization solves this issue, and works correctly with rare x86 instructions. (at least with Intel Unrestricted mode CPU or AMD-V CPU)

>Is it planned to remove this limitation for Mac OSX guests?
>If so, when is it expected to be available?
>If it is not planned, why not?

Since most CPUs now support hardware VT, developers have changed focus to better support it and optimize for VT.
I think it is not planned.

-Technologov

[tecinv]

Thanks for the answers.

Technologov,
can you point out what are the missing instructions or unhandled cases, or is there any documentation of what are the problematic intructions, for future reference (for others that might try to solve these problems) ?