Strange behavior laptop/external monitor

Discussions about using Mac OS X guests (on Apple hardware) in VirtualBox.
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loodz
Posts: 2
Joined: 6. Dec 2021, 22:55

Strange behavior laptop/external monitor

Post by loodz »

Hello!

I've been using a few different virtual machines via virtual box and one occaison that stands out every time is the following:

Whenever I open the virtual machine on my macbook the overall experience is quite bad. Now, when I instead use an external monitor connected to my laptop it suddenly works perfectly fine. I've been thinking about it for some time, and I have come to the conclusion that it might have to do with my monitor being 16:9 (1920x1080) formatted while my laptop is 16:10 (2560 × 1600) and some rendering issues might take place? Furthermore the desktop is nicely sized when I use the VM on my external monitor but when I only use my laptop (or having the application open on my laptop screen) the desktop is really zoomed out making it almost impossible to read.

I don't bother digging into logs and such to start with, currently I'm just wondering if someone right off the bat can answer this apparent issue. If there is any information missing, please let me know and I can try provide it!

Version I'm using: "Oracle VM VirtualBox VM Selector v6.1.30"

Thanks!
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Strange behavior laptop/external monitor

Post by scottgus1 »

There is one thing that might work:

For slow VMs on a Retina Mac, try running Virtualbox in low resolution:
solution by '63BottlesOfBeer' and 'sigismund'
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=90446&start=75#p470879
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=91864&p=491209#p491209
1. Navigate to Apps folder. Choose VirtualBox.app
2. Right click on VirtualBox.app, Show Package Contents.
3. Contents -> Resources -> VirtualBoxVM.app (right click -> Get info)
4. Check the "Open in Low Resolution" checkbox.
5. Run the Virtual Machine in 100% scale mode.
loodz
Posts: 2
Joined: 6. Dec 2021, 22:55

Re: Strange behavior laptop/external monitor

Post by loodz »

scottgus1 wrote:There is one thing that might work:

For slow VMs on a Retina Mac, try running Virtualbox in low resolution:
solution by '63BottlesOfBeer' and 'sigismund'
...
1. Navigate to Apps folder. Choose VirtualBox.app
2. Right click on VirtualBox.app, Show Package Contents.
3. Contents -> Resources -> VirtualBoxVM.app (right click -> Get info)
4. Check the "Open in Low Resolution" checkbox.
5. Run the Virtual Machine in 100% scale mode.
I just tried it and to my suprise it actually works really well, despite a little lower resolution. I no longer have to stay at home to do VM specific stuff XD. Thank you very much, came in clutch!
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