Video resolution in a VM

[Polytropon]

On Tue, 1 Jan 2019 17:05:09 -0800, Kurt Buff - GSEC, GCIH wrote:
> I'm not able to get display resolution greater than 1280x720 - I'd
> really like to get it to 1920x1080, to match the laptop capabilities.
> 
> [...]
> 
> The laptop shows two video displays in hdwwiz.cpl in Windows:
>      Intel HD Graphics 630
>      NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
> but it looks as if the NVIDIA isn't active. Don't know why that is.
> 
> When I run xvinfo, it shows no display available.
> 
> For "display", pciconf says:
>      vgapci0 at pci0:0:15:0:    class=0x030000 card=0x040515ad
> chip=0x040515ad rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
>          vendor     = 'VMware'
>          device     = 'SVGA II Adapter'
>          class      = display
>          subclass   = VGA
> 
> The .vmx files shows the following for the display:
> vmotion.checkpointSVGAPrimarySize = "8323072"
> svga.maxHeight = "1080"
> svga.maxWidth = "1920"
> svga.autodetect = "FALSE"
> svga.vramSize = "8323072"
> 
> Any thoughts would be appreciated.

There are several things you can try:

First of all, it seems that VMware does not properly "represent"
the existing hardware to your FreeBSD VM instance, so you only
seem to get the generic "SVGA card". Also, have you thought
about increasing the VRAM size? You can never have enough
of VRAM. :-)

Try using xrandr to set the screen size from insie the VM.
A command line

	xrandr --size 1920x1080

should work.

You can also try to use a specific X configuration fragment,
for example /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/screen-resolution.conf
with a content like this:

	Section "Screen"
	        Identifier "Screen0"
	        Device "Card0"
	        SubSection "Display"
	                Modes "1920x1080"
	        EndSubSection
	EndSection

You could then experiment with the setting DisplaySize (in mm)
and the Option "DPI" (for example with "110 x 110"), depending
on the actual properties of the hardware (!) you are using.
A laptop display only has one sceen size and one resolution.
Normally, X will calculate the correct information itself,
which is usually obtained from the display, but this might not
work as intended because of the "VM mangling"... ;-)




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...