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OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

  • 1.  OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 06:43 PM

    Hello,

    I'm desperately trying to get OpenGL support in my VMware Fusion Virtual Machine (with Windows 11 64-bit Arm). I'm running VMware Fusion Player 13.5.1 on a MacBook Pro with an Apple M1 Max chip, Sonoma 14.4.

    Is it possible? Thank you!

    OpenGL



  • 2.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:09 PM

    The post right below yours is the product manager announcing support for OpenGL.



  • 3.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:30 PM

    But note that the support is for OpenGL 4.2, not 4.3.

    Blender still might complain if it is absolutely requiring OpenGL 4.3. If it can't work with OpenGL 4.2, it's not going to run under a Fusion Windows 11 ARM VM. 



  • 4.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:00 PM

    Curious, there's a native (even ARM native) MacOS blender available...why would you run it in a VM instead of native?



  • 5.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:02 PM

    I'm a Blender add-on developer. I use the VMware Virtual Machine to build a Windows installer and I would love to test my add-ons on Windows, but I've never gotten past Blender's OpenGL requirement.



  • 6.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?
    Best Answer

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:21 PM

    Good news/bad news. I just installed the VMware Tools update and tried Blender.

    Bad news: Blender 4.x installs and does not complain about lack of OpenGL. But it crashes immediately after launch.

    Good news: Blender 3.6 LTS installs from the Microsoft Store and seems to run. 

    Technogeezer_0-1711138800561.png

     



  • 7.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:30 PM

    Hello,

    Thank you so much for your help! I just tried installing 3.6 LTS and got this error requiring OpenGL 3.3. How may I check if my VMware Tools are the correct ones for OpenGL? Thank you!

    blastframe_0-1711139311390.png

     



  • 8.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 11:13 PM

    ah, gotcha, makes sense then!



  • 9.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:31 PM

    Hi,

    Thank you for the reply. I saw the post, but I must have read it incorrectly: emulated x86/x64 mode is for Macs? I'm very unskilled with VMware so I'm not sure how I use this with my current Virtual Machine in Fusion. Which product am I installing: VMware Tools packages for Windows Arm?



  • 10.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:36 PM
     wrote:

    Hi,

    Thank you for the reply. I saw the post, but I must have read it incorrectly: emulated x86/x64 mode is for Macs? I'm very unskilled with VMware so I'm not sure how I use this with my current Virtual Machine in Fusion. Which product am I installing: VMware Tools packages for Windows Arm?

    Blender is not a native Windows ARM app, it's an Intel x64 app that's running under Microsoft's translator (that works similarly to Apple's Rosetta 2). The "emulated support" would in my mind allow translated apps to access OpenGL 4.2.

    You would have to install the updated VMware Tools as noted by  in his post. As I said, this may not be sufficient to get Blender to work if it absolutely requires OpenGL4.3 as that's not being provided by the updated tools. 



  • 11.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:37 PM

    Sorry for my confusion. In Fusion, when I try to create a new virtual machine with New, then load the .iso from VMware-Tools-windows-arm-12.4.0-23259341.zip, it says no OS is found.

    Screenshot 2024-03-22 at 1.34.37 PM.pngScreenshot 2024-03-22 at 1.35.17 PM.png

    Should I be using this .iso with my existing Windows 11 Arm Virtual Machine somehow?



  • 12.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:42 PM

    You don't need to create a new VM. What you're trying to do is to boot the VMware Tools ISO which as you found out fails miserably since there is no bootable OS on that media.

    Instead, configure the virtual CD/DVD drive on your existing Windows 11 ARM VM to point to the downloaded VMware Tools ISO. Then boot your VM and log in. You should then see an autoplay prompt telling you that the Tools installer ISO has been mounted and asks what to do, Tell the autoplay dialog to run setup.exe and the tools installer will start the installation/upgrade process.

     



  • 13.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 07:51 PM

    Thank you so much for the kind reply, understanding, and patience.

    I tried what you said, but didn't see anything happen after running setup.exe. In this screencapture, I'm trying to run setup.exe regularly, as an Administrator, and the setup64.exe. I also then try opening Blender.

    Am I doing something incorrectly? Thank you!



  • 14.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:21 PM

    I was able to run setup by first going to Virtual Machine > Reinstall VMware Tools. I removed the existing VMware Tools installation, then opened the .iso by going to Virtual Machine > CD/DVD > Choose Disc or Disc Image.

    It installed. I'm still not able to open Blender, though. Are there any Windows on ARM Emulation settings I need to change or should I try to install a different version of Blender? Thank you!



  • 15.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:30 PM

    Open the Installed Apps in Windows. There should be an entry for VMware Tools and it should match 12.4.0.xxxxxxxx if you've installed the latest Tools:

    Technogeezer_0-1711139635332.png

     

    For what it's worth, I installed Blender 3.6 LTS from the Microsoft Store, and not from the blender.org web site.

    My suspicion is that there's just enough OpenGL in the latest Tools to satisfy the installer, but not enough (e.g. no 4.3) that would allow the app to run. Blender 3.6 requires OpenGL 3.3, so that's probably why the 4.2 provided by the latest VMware Tools will work.

    If my suspicions are true, there's probably not much you can do to get Blender 4.0 running until VMware comes out with OpenGL 4.3 support in its drivers. 



  • 16.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 08:37 PM

    Hi Paul,

    Thank you for the help! The screenshot I shared in my last post was from Blender 3.6. I don't think I installed VMware Tools with support for OpenGL 4.2 correctly because it's giving me a warning about OpenGL 3.3. Do you or anyone else have advice on installing this latest version? Reinstalling VMware Tools and removing the old Tools doesn't seem to get my Virtual Machine using the latest Tools .iso

    Thank you!



  • 17.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 09:21 PM

    Our posts seem to have crossed, so I edited this one to remove the detailed instruction - which you don't seem to need.

    Glad you were able to get it to run. Good luck.

     



  • 18.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 11:48 PM

    This has been an issue for me for months: I've bought a couple laptops and cloud computer instances. The virtual machine is the best solution for me right now. I really mean it when I say that I am very grateful for y'all's help.



  • 19.  RE: OpenGL 4.3+ on M1 Mac?

    Posted Mar 22, 2024 09:00 PM

    I don't know which VMware Tools .iso I was using before, but the correct one for me was VMware-Tools-windows-arm-12.4.0-23259341.zip. I now have Blender 3.6 LTS installed. Using Blender 4.0 would be awesome, but just having 3.6 on Windows is wonderful!

    Thank you all for your help!

    blastframe_1-1711141062649.png