virtualbox.org

In my VB Manager, the video memory is @ 18mb and I have no control in increasing this to the allowable 128mb.
Running XP on Imac w/ Lion 10.7.3, AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB.

I was running my cadd program and all of a sudden the screen went translucent gray and did not return to normal until I closed the files (not the program or VB) I was working in.
How can I increase the allotted video memory?

Fully shut down the VM (do not save state), then change the memory allocation in VM settings Display section.

Already tried that- it is not playing nice.

What version of VirtualBox are you using?

Current version is V4.1.10 r76795

I downloaded 4.1.12-77245-OSX.dmg this morning but my question becomes, are there any known issues or special steps to take with installing updates/newer versions?

That depends on what version you are upgrading from. Major version upgrades may require you to un-install the previous build first.

And, the place to find out the recommended procedure?

I am new to this software, so any guidance from the long-term users is much appreciated. I used Parallels years ago but is was too sketchy with the video portion so I have used a Windows hard boot on my Macbook Pro until it started throwing hissy fits last week (after six years of being my workhorse, I can't complain too much); thus the new Imac. I am also avoiding Windows 7 at all costs to avoid the NTFS/Mac incompatibility.

So far VB is performing great; I just need to spend more time configuring my shared folders and drives, etc.

Well if you have already upgraded you will not be able to find out and if you don't remember then we should just forget that part.

So clear this all up for me. You shut down the guest, and go into the guest setting in the VirtualBox main manager and select the display.
From here you say the guest is set to 18MB, and the ability to change is greyed out, correct?
Also can you see what the Maximum would be if it were enabled? Can you post a screen shot of this?
I can point you to where you set this manually but lets not go there yet.

Video memory now set @ 128mb- not sure why this was not available earlier today. Thanks on that part.

First and only version installed on this Imac is V4.1.10 r76795

I downloaded 4.1.12-77245-OSX.dmg - there is nothing in the included users manual that covers upgrading, only the standard installation instructions. From your experience, do you need to reinstall Windows after an upgrade to a new VB version?

Naw the guest will be fine. You should always install the latest guest additions (in the guest) though.
I also know that the upgrade path is some what vague in print. Probably because it depends on the host architecture. My rule of thumb is any major upgrade in the version number I remove the current version before I install the new one. Even on my own builds from SVN I always remove and install so I don't have conflicts. VirtualBox is designed to retain the settings and guests on removal so you should always be safe. But I always tell everyone to backup first. If nothing else this will make sure you have a backup in case the guest does and nose dive.

Oh and a point of clarification just in case you didn't know. The vRam that you assign to the guest is actually coming from the hosts system memory and not the GPU.