14 DAY TRIAL // It has been revealed that Mac OS X 10.5.7 breaks VMWare Fusion's 3D acceleration in Windows virtual machines. VMware Fusion is the most popular virtualization solution for Mac OS X, allowing Mac owners to run x86 operating systems on their machines, inside artificial environments called “virtual machines.”
Poster robg over at MacOS X Hints signals that, “If you're using VMware Fusion to run virtual Windows OSes with 3D graphics enabled, and you're doing so on a Mac equipped with an ATI video card, you'll want to hold off on updating to OS X 10.5.7, if you haven't done so as of yet.” Noting that the aforementioned 3D acceleration issue does not affect NVIDIA-equipped Macs running 10.5.7, the author of the post claims to have received direct word from VMware on this new issue with the virtualization app. Apparently, only ATI-equipped Macs are helpless when it comes to tackling this problem.
Upon acknowledging the issue, the people at VMware updated their blog with a Message to VMware Fusion Users with Macs that have ATI Graphics Cards about Apple's Mac OS X Update 10.5.7. According to the post, when users try to use 3D acceleration on machines running 10.5.7, they will “likely see issues ranging from slow performance, to incorrect rendering, and even crashes.” VMware claims both Apple and ATI are actively working on a patch.
There is currently no solution or workaround for the issue, except for disabling 3D acceleration. However, since the ATI driver problem only affects the 3D functionality in VMware Fusion, users who do not require 3D acceleration for their activities will be able to run their Windows apps just fine. As such, to turn off 3D in Fusion follow these steps below.
1- Power off your Virtual Machine. 2- Select “Settings” under the Virtual Machine menu. 3- In the Settings window, click “Display.” 4- Uncheck “Accelerate 3D Graphics.”
Have you experienced graphics glitches / issues with other applications after installing 10.5.7?