Virtualbox cursor capturing overriding a guest-side program's attempts to move cursor to center?

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GryphongirlofTAP
Posts: 1
Joined: 2. May 2019, 02:37

Virtualbox cursor capturing overriding a guest-side program's attempts to move cursor to center?

Post by GryphongirlofTAP »

Hello! I've lately been using VirtualBox as a way to play games that were compatible during Mac's PowerPC era, but now require me to emulate Windows. Most recently, I've created a VM specifically to play Zoo Tycoon 2: Ultimate Collection on Windows 7 guest OS.
I was having trouble with any game controls that involved rotating the camera by using the mouse, which made the first-person sections of the game difficult to control, and thus some of the quests in campaign and challenge modes difficult to complete due to inability to aim the camera and take a good picture. However, after a few days of poking and even belief that I simply needed to install drivers for my mouse on the guest side, I've finally figured out the problem.
Zoo Tycoon 2 measures how fast/which direction to rotate the camera by how far away from the center of the screen (or the window in window mode) the cursor is. With my setup, since the cursor is hidden during rotation controls, this leads to a rather drunken-feeling camera that drifts around and sometimes fails to immediately respond to changes in movement direction. This still seemed odd to me, as I had played the Mac version as a child, and encountered no such "drunken" camera behavior.
It then occurred to me that a part of the normal camera - control process is being skipped. I had noticed that the camera WILL stop rotating when the mouse stops moving, but sometimes it doesn't act appropriately afterwards. Example: I had rotated the camera right, stopped, then tried to rotate it left a bit. Instead of going left immediately when told, the camera kept rotating right, slowed, THEN went left... because at first, the cursor was still on the right.
This means that normally, Zoo Tycoon 2 should be sending the cursor to the center each time the player stops moving their mouse, or even more frequently than that. But something is stopping it from doing so. Could the cursor-capturing authority of VirtualBox be overriding Zoo Tycoon 2's authority? Or is it a guest OS problem? In either case, is there a setting I can change to allow Zoo Tycoon 2 to do as it wishes?
Other than lag/red screens on the .bik intro cutscenes for Microsoft Game Studios, Blue Fang Games, and the game itself, a single freeze during a loading screen, and occasional graphic glitches with the four icons for the "expansion packs" on the game's main menu, this is the only problem affecting my enjoyment of the game. I can look past all the others, since they affect only visual things outside of the gameplay, or simply require a restart and willingness to save my game frequently, but the camera control problems detract a fair amount from the gameplay itself, and it can be a bit annoying to have to remember my tricks to minimize their effects.

Edit: Forgot to mention my specs.
Host OS: Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6 on: Retina 5K 2017 iMac.
VirtualBox version 5.2.28 r130011
Guest OS: Windows 7, 64-bit
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