virtualbox.org

I've just installed a fresh VM of Ubuntu 11.10 in a MacOSX. 3D acceleration is not working: I cannot see any application on desktop.
I have seen some identical topics in the forum viewtopic.php?f=3&t=45379&start=45 but they don't solve my problem. Besides, the ticket https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9799 presents the same problem, but with a different host. Please, let me know if I could have 3D acceleration working in my system or I have also to open a ticket.
Guest: Ubuntu 11.10
Host: MacOSX Leopard
VB version: 4.1.4 with guest additions installed

same problem but running VB 4.1.6

Did you upgrade the Guest Additions to 4.1.6?

Frank Mehnert wrote:Did you upgrade the Guest Additions to 4.1.6?

yes. actually I installed it under 4.1.6 yesterday. Gnome3 is working more or less. just not Unity3d. I think it's a problem for most Mac users seeing most Macs use ATI graphics.

Reinstalled VB to 4.1.6 and Guest Additions 4.16. Problem still remains.

most all Macs now use AMD Radeon(ATI) graphics so it might be nice if the Mac version of VirtualBox was set up to use them.

just saying.

It would seem that the Apple drivers for the Radeon card lacks certain features required by VB. All we hear are problems from people with recent Macs that have AMD video cards. None that have issues is running with an nVidia card.

Sasquatch wrote:It would seem that the Apple drivers for the Radeon card lacks certain features required by VB. All we hear are problems from people with recent Macs that have AMD video cards. None that have issues is running with an nVidia card.

Oh I believe you. Hence my comment. Unless Oracle doesn't think Mac owners are worth worrying about. And btw, the only problem seems to be with the new Compiz for Unity and somewhat Gnome 3. For me I suppose it doesn't matter so much because I don't care for Unity or Gnome 3.

There is nothing that can be done at the VirtualBox level (or the Mac OS level) if the device driver in the host does not work as it should. This has always been a problem for OS and application programmers. They can only write code based on the published specifications or a particular device. If the manufacturer's driver does not meet their own published specs, the only way it can work is if the manufacturer fixes the driver. This can take a while. Driver support for the first 64-bit OS versions was a problem for years.

Well the Gnome3 issue is about to become moot. They have figured out how to use the Gallium3D's LLVMpipe and software rendering. Not going to help Unity at this point but who knows. I really don't see why they can't do the same thing with Unity. So with everything is such flux I can see why programmers are not jumping all over the place to fix something that is more than likely going to be replaced soon.

BillG wrote:There is nothing that can be done at the VirtualBox level (or the Mac OS level) if the device driver in the host does not work as it should. This has always been a problem for OS and application programmers. They can only write code based on the published specifications or a particular device. If the manufacturer's driver does not meet their own published specs, the only way it can work is if the manufacturer fixes the driver. This can take a while. Driver support for the first 64-bit OS versions was a problem for years.

I'm not sure what makes you think the manufacturer's driver doesn't meet their own specs as opposed to software written to run on it. I wouldn't know myself.

Perryg wrote:Well the Gnome3 issue is about to become moot. They have figured out how to use the Gallium3D's LLVMpipe and software rendering. Not going to help Unity at this point but who knows. I really don't see why they can't do the same thing with Unity. So with everything is such flux I can see why programmers are not jumping all over the place to fix something that is more than likely going to be replaced soon.

moot is good.

loukingjr wrote:I'm not sure what makes you think the manufacturer's driver doesn't meet their own specs as opposed to software written to run on it. I wouldn't know myself.

He means that they write the drivers in such a way that certain 3D features are no longer working as noted in the specs. E.g. VB depends heavily on OpenGL. It has implemented most of the APIs/features to make 3D possible in a VM, down as far as to get Gnome Shell going in a way. What do you think would happen if the manufacturer no longer adds OpenGL in their driver, or only a certain version, let's say 4.1, and it's not backward compatible? Then all the calls VB depend on, written for 4.0 and below, are completely useless.

AMD/ATi is no god in this world. In fact, they do what they want. If they want to not support a certain Linux distro, kernel or Xserver version, then they won't. You'll be stuck with the OpenSource drivers that are inferior when it comes to 3D. They can also decide that by supporting a new distro, they drop cards that are x years old.
nVidia on the other had may have their own share of 'heads in the clouds' sort of attitude, but at least they still support older cards on newer distro's and are fairly quick in supporting new distro's.
Talking about Linux here.

Now for OSX, where this is all about, the same thing may apply. Because people update their OS, but also VB, we can't really rule out of a certain version with certain fixes is the culprit here. All we can do is wait and hope 4.2 has this sorted.

I didn't mean to sound as critical as it seemed. I am aware that things break as changes come along. I just was getting the feeling that Canonical in particular seems to have made a choice that if you don't have nvidia graphics, too bad. Or at least someone seems to. I really like VirtualBox and returned two paid for virtualization programs for refunds because VB actually ran more Linux spins than the other two. I have oodles of Linux guests and two Windows guests that run just fine. I'm just not sure how committed Oracle is to Mac owners. 3D support has been iffy for awhile for Mac users. I can certainly live without Unity and/or Gnome 3.

I guess we'll see what 4.2 is like.

Really the whole compiz laden Unity is an issue because of the need for acceleration. Now Gnome knew going into this that a lot of people were going to have issues to the point of even not being able to use Gnome. They made the decision to move forward regardless and I suspect the complaints is what is causing the decision to at least try software acceleration.

These are the graphics requirements for Unity.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DemystifyingUni ... quirements

well, they say AMD graphics are supported but based on what I read here, read about problems with Unity running on hardware, I'm not too convinced. Maybe I should try installing Ubuntu 11.10 to a partition and see if it will run natively on my Mac.