Sometimes Trasparent Mode

[giacomignoz]

Hi Guys,
Sorry for my english but I stay studyng it at school,
however, I have a small problem with my virtual box (2.2).
I have Ubuntu 9.04 and i mount with virtualbox Windows Xp Pro.

My problem is that sometimes my virtualmachine start in Normal Mode and sometimes in Trasparent mode.
If i push HOST + L, the windows enlarge always on trasparent mode.

I hope that you understan me.

Byeee

[Perryg]

Could you please post your host memory RAM and Video, and the settings for the guest?

[giacomignoz]

I have 1Gb Ram
Video Ati Mobility Radeon 9000 128Mb

setting for guest
10Gb space
RAM: 425Mb
Video: 64Mb
ACPI: Active
IO APIC: Active
VT-x/AMD-V: Active
Paginazione nidificata: Not active
PAE/NX: Not active
Accelerazione 3D: Active

Dischi fissi IDE Primario Master: winzozz.vdi (Normale, 10,00 GB)

[Perryg]

Try turning off the 3D effects in the guest.

• From the users guide
  <snip>
  The 3D acceleration currently has the following preconditions:
  
  It is only available for certain Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. In particular:
  
  For Windows guests, support is restricted to 32-bit versions of XP and Vista. Only OpenGL acceleration is presently available in the guests listed above; Direct3D is not yet supported and will be added in a future release.
  <snip>

[giacomignoz]

I had try to disable 3D acceleration on VB settings but the result was the same
Now i try again...

[giacomignoz]

i switch off my compiz effect and i have reduced video memory at 32Mb and disable the 3D acceleration of VB.

It's started on normal mode!
It's a case?

I'll try it in this days....

[Sasquatch]

I think you're referring to the Seamless Mode available when hitting Host+L. When you shut down the VM while in seamless, it will return to seamless when you start the VM and the modules are loaded for it. So make sure you get out of Seamless before shutting down the VM. If it keeps popping to seamless, even though you haven't triggered it during VM runtime, check the VM settings. This can be found in ~/.VirtualBox/Machines/<machine name>/<machine name>.xml. Check at the top for something like this:

Code: Select all

<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Seamless" value="off"/>

When it says "on", then it will restore to Seamless mode when the module is loaded. Change it to off to avoid that.

[zeckenleger]

I have the same problem on my AMD/ATI Ubuntu 9.04 desktop.
I think this has nothing to do with any setting on VB. Only the first start of a VM after logging into the system works properly.
Switching off and restarting a VM, or starting a second one leads to the problem.
My workaround is the tool compiz-switch to temporarily switch off compiz when I have this effect.

[Sasquatch]

Do you have 3D enabled for the VM? Try it without it, maybe that's the whole problem. I never noticed this myself, while I run Compiz-Fusion on my system. But I don't have 3D enabled for all my VMs, only one or two have it on and I don't boot them much.

[zeckenleger]

it is exactly the same, with or without 3D enabled on my desktop.
On my Intel-based notebook i don't have this problem.

[Sasquatch]

Can you please post a screenshot of the problem? Because I think there is a misunderstanding here about transparent mode, aka seamless, and real transparency.

[zeckenleger]

Ok, it seems that I mixed this up with seamless mode here. Sorry for that.
Attached you will find a screenshot.

[Sasquatch]

Well, that problem has been answered here before. The problem is that you have some program that uses ARGB values, like Cairo Clock or something. If you start VB from the command line the command from the linked topic, it should not happen.
If you run Compiz, check this topic: http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=2677
And http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 1&start=15

[zeckenleger]

thank you for the links, I will have a look at it!