Always popup "check your video drivers" but no video driver found

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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pstein
Posts: 59
Joined: 20. Nov 2008, 20:48
Primary OS: MS Windows XP
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Guest OSses: Ubuntu, CentOS

Always popup "check your video drivers" but no video driver found

Post by pstein »

As a testsuite I downloaded and installed Linux Mint pre-installed Image for VirtualBox.

It works.

However immediately after start always a popup appears inside the guestOS:

"Check your video drivers
Your system is currently running without video hardware acceleration.
You may experience poor performance and high CPU usage"
Launch Driver manager"

So I clicked on the lower button and let the guestOS Driver Manager scan and search for driver updates.
It does not found any (more).

But the next time I start Linux Mint guestOS the popup appears again.

So how can I get rid of this warning popup?
scottgus1
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Re: Always popup "check your video drivers" but no video driver found

Post by scottgus1 »

I think I've seen that to on a Mint VM. It's because Guest Additions are not installed (or incompatible Guest Additions are installed).

Open the VM's vbox.log and look for the last instance of this text:

Guest Additions information report: Version

If that line is present it will tell what version of Guest Additions is installed. If the line is not present, Guest Additions are not installed. It is better to have the GAs version match the installed Virtualbox version, especially if 3D acceleration is being used.

Guest Additions provide the drivers for the Virtualbox 'video card' as well as a couple other things.

Installing Guest Additions in Linux VMs has prerequisites, same as for installing Virtualbox on the host, see https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch02. ... nux-prereq. Often the thing needed is the headers.

Then use the VM's Devices menu, "Insert Guest Additions CD Image" to insert the GAs ISO into the VM's CD drive, then run the installer.

After GAs install correctly, shut down the VM fully, enable 3D acceleration in the VM's Display settings, crank video RAM up to max, then start the VM again.
pstein
Posts: 59
Joined: 20. Nov 2008, 20:48
Primary OS: MS Windows XP
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Ubuntu, CentOS

Re: Always popup "check your video drivers" but no video driver found

Post by pstein »

@scottgus1:

Thank you for your comments.

Yes, I found "Guest Additions information report: Version" in my log.

After update of Guest Additions to newest version it looks like:

00:00:26.377642 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.26 r145957 '6.1.26'
00:00:26.377690 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Interface = 0x00010004 osType = 0x00053100 (Linux >= 2.6, 64-bit)
00:00:26.377799 VMMDev: Guest Additions capability report: (0x0 -> 0x0) seamless: no, hostWindowMapping: no, graphics: no

Now, I enabled (as suggested) 3D acceleration in VM settings and set video RAM to max (here 128 MB).
Only possible Graphics Controller=VMSVGA

Now I started the VM.

The login screen looks good.

But after entering the password almost the full window is white (see attached screenshot). Even after 20 minutes.
I have 16GB RAM in host machine (which runs under Windows 7 if this matters)

If I revert back (disable) 3D acceleration then everything works but the "check your video drivers" popup is present again.

So the initial problem still persists.

Any other suggestion?
Almost empty display in Linux after enabling 3D-Acceleration in VM settings.png
Almost empty display in Linux after enabling 3D-Acceleration in VM settings.png (38.66 KiB) Viewed 3171 times
fth0
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Location: Germany

Re: Always popup "check your video drivers" but no video driver found

Post by fth0 »

Both issues have to do with the Cinnamon desktop environment:

Without 3D acceleration available, Cinnamon will show the popup. If it annoys you, google how to get rid of it.

With 3D acceleration enabled, there's an issue with the combination of VirtualBox 6.1.26 (and older), Cinnamon and Mesa 21.0.3 (and newer), leading to the white screen (see 20513 for details). There is a workaround in the VirtualBox test builds 6.1.27r146688 and newer.
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