virtualbox.org

Its possible that it will. The issue is the technology of trying to connect to the GPU directly from a VM which has to use another layer.

maybe I'll just burn it to a DVD and see. I believe Ubuntu has .isos specifically to boot on Macs with EFI.

I have an 'older' macbook pro, with nvidia gfx, same problem with unity 3d: I cannot see applications unless i go into view desktops mode. So I guess its not just AMD/ATI related ...

@eemerge ,

I'm curious. What is the version of your nVidia driver? Do you have to get your driver from apple or can you install the non-free driver from nVidia?

Perryg wrote:@eemerge ,

I'm curious. What is the version of your nVidia driver? Do you have to get your driver from apple or can you install the non-free driver from nVidia?

I can answer that. The only way to update drivers on Macs that have graphic chip sets is to hope Apple creates a new firmware update. I assume, although I don't know, if you have a Mac Pro with a separate graphics card you might be able to install new drivers.

loukingjr wrote:maybe I'll just burn it to a DVD and see. I believe Ubuntu has .isos specifically to boot on Macs with EFI.

Were you able to test this?

Perryg wrote:

loukingjr wrote:maybe I'll just burn it to a DVD and see. I believe Ubuntu has .isos specifically to boot on Macs with EFI.

Were you able to test this?

not yet... I'm out of DVD's and haven't gotten to a store yet

okay, I'm running ubuntu 11.10 off the CD as I type. Unity 3D works fine.

OK so can you compare the difference in live cd with on in a vm?
Type glxinfo in a terminal.

Perryg wrote:OK so can you compare the difference in live cd with on in a vm?
Type glxinfo in a terminal.

it doesn't have glxinfo installed and I only had a write only CD... what I might try is installing a new guest using the amd+Mac .iso

Ok. Thanks anyway. I was wondering what might be missing that would cause this to happen primarily with MAC hosts.

Perryg wrote:Ok. Thanks anyway. I was wondering what might be missing that would cause this to happen primarily with MAC hosts.

no problem. I tried enabling EFI when I started installing the new guest but it opens to a "shell>_" command and I have no idea what I was suppose to type. It may just need to be able to talk to the Mac's EFI firmware. don't know. If I feel brave I can install it to a partition and try from there.

Is there any progress on this? Is there a bug raised?

I have a 2011 Macbook Air which uses Intel graphics (HD 3000) and find that 3D acceleration does not work in Ubuntu 11.10. So it does not seem to be related to the type of graphic card, it just seems that OSX VB 4.1.6 does not work with 3D and Ubuntu 11.10. I have tried Unity and Gnome shell. I have also upgraded my guest kernel to the latest 3.2.0-3 and also tried upgrading my graphics to the current xorg-edgers with no change.

To follow my own post up, yes there is bug 9863 which describes the problem (sorry, I tried to post link to the bug but I am apparently not allowed to post links yet! - silly system). My comment above is incorrect, gnome-shell (mutter) does actually work ok with 3d acceleration, only unity-3d (compiz) does not work.