VBox 6.0 Mint 19.1 screen 'tearing'

[zslg01]

I just installed VBox 6.0 and put Mint 19.1 on it. In the Linux admin panel selection box there is obvious screen 'tearing' and other artifacts. I have maxed out vram (128MB), 3D acceleration turned on, and am running in scaled mode on a Retina display. Any suggestions?

[zslg01]

Additional info - I am on a MacBook Pro (mid-2015) and am using the VMSVGA graphics option in VirtualBox.

[socratis]

We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run, where the problem occurs:

• Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe problem / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

[zslg01]

Here it is .. log

[zslg01]

And here is screen shot ....oops ... its too big more than 128KB

[socratis]

00:00:01.196132 3DEnabled        <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:01.196140 VMSVGAEnabled    <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:01.196140 VMSVGAPciId      <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:01.196141 VRamSize         <integer> = 0x0000000008000000 (134 217 728, 128 MB)

Shut down the VM. Go to the VM Settings » Display » Screen. Change the Graphics controller from "VMSVGA" to "VBoxVGA". Enable 3D acceleration. Increase the VRAM to the max 128 MB. Start the VM...

[zslg01]

Meh - here are two logs .. had to hard reset VM so I am not sure which one was active during test. All the VGA option did was make display unreadable on Retina display - Scaled mode was worse.
You guys have some graphics work to do IMHO.
I'm going back to VMWare (in spite of how much I dislike DELL)....
Two logs attached as a zipped folder

[Dave B]

Hi zslg01,

Rather than using 'Scaled Mode', there's couple of other possibilities to try...

1. (from running guest window) View -> Virtual Screen 1 -> Scale to 200% (or other preferred setting).

2. If running Cinnamon Edition, leave VirtualBox scaling at default 100%, (within the guest) Menu -> Preferences -> General -> User interface scaling: -> Double (Hi-DPI), logout and back in, or restart the guest.

[socratis]

What I do is to change the global zoom factor from the VirtualBox Preferences » Display (at 200%), and leave the per-VM settings untouched. Because if you touch it even once, you got to keep on setting that manually.

[Dave B]

...Enable 3D acceleration...

3D acceleration can be problematic if using VBoxVGA with Cinnamon. So saying, we don't yet know which edition OP is using.

[Dave B]

...Because if you touch it even once, you got to keep on setting that manually.

Interesting, setting has always been preserved after making a scale change to a running guest. Apologies if I've misunderstood.

Edit: Ah, just seen the setting you are referencing!

[socratis]

3D acceleration can be problematic if using VBoxVGA with Cinnamon.

Not sure which problems you refer to, I've always used 3D with Cinnamon on several Mint version, up to 19, haven't tried 19.1 yet...

setting has always been preserved after making a scale change to a running guest

Preserving isn't the problem, getting rid of it is.

[Dave B]

Here's a couple of screen captures (scaled down), first shows what I call the 'bloom' issue, this is a long time issue with Cinnamon edition and VirtualBox (Clem (main Linux Mint dev) is aware of the issue).

VBoxVGA with 3D acceleration

VirtualBox_Mint 19.1 bloom .jpg (92.87 KiB) Viewed 5955 times

VBoxVGA sans 3D acceleration

VirtualBox_Mint 19.1 normal.jpg (76.47 KiB) Viewed 5955 times

Bloom issue doesn't happen while using VMSVGA and 3D acceleration, but there's currently other issues with that mode.

[socratis]

Oh, I see, you talk about the "psychedelic screen" issue, right...
I've seen that part, yes. I never realized it was caused/triggered by the 3D acceleration, I thought it was just Cinnamon's weirdness (which most probably is). Seems like a wrong gamma is applied if you ask me...

Plus I have a grey solid background, and I'm dealing with the Terminal only