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  • 1.  VMware Fusion pro M1 Pro Solidworks Problem

    Posted Mar 08, 2025 09:25 AM

    Hello, I have 10CPU 16GPU M1 Pro Macbook

    I have been having problems with Solidworks running slowly for about 2-3 days. When I select a plane, it is selected as if someone is drawing a line with a pen. I realized that the problem is caused by OpenGL. OpenGL appears as gray in Solidworks, when I changed VMware from 10 to 9 in Regedit, everything is fast, but when I select a plane or want to draw, it crashes directly. Finally, I turned off 3D Acceleration. Now it works very well, but this time I lost the "smooth" feeling on the screen.

    In this context, will there be support for OpenGL or programs like CAD/CAM? Can anyone solve the situation I am in right now or know how to solve it? This will be a light for both me and everyone who will experience this problem.

    Also, I saw that it says DX11 + 4.6 Open GL in some videos on YouTube. For me, it only says DX11. Is there a way to open this?



  • 2.  RE: VMware Fusion pro M1 Pro Solidworks Problem

    Posted Mar 08, 2025 11:23 AM

    Vmware's SVGA II driver's 3D acceleration only supports DX11 features 11_0, 10_1, 10_0, 9_3, 9_2, 9_1. -- that's from dxdiag in the VM.

    According to VMware Tools 12.5.0  release notes, the virtual video driver also supports OpenGL 4.5 by software rendering -- but only when 3D acceleration is disabled. VMware Tools 12.4.5 also lists OpenGL 4.3 as supported with software rendering - I suspect that 3D acceleration also needs to be turned off.

    You are fighting 3 issues that are going to present challenges when running on ARM:

    • VMware's support of graphics API
    • Running Intel code on an ARM cpu under Microsoft's Prism translator - from what I see, Solidworks is only compile for Intel CPUs, so the translator could be a factor in performance
    • vendor support for graphics cards - Solidworks does not list VMware's SVGA as supported.

    The best you can hope for is to search in other forums for ideas on how to hack SolidWorks to run better in a VM - most of us here are not SolidWorks experts. And that someone from Broadcom will see this post and see if there's any changes they're interested in making to VMware Tools. 

    My opinion is that you should choose the tool that best fits the job. Running graphics intensive software is best done on native hardware as you'll have direct access to the hardware. Running them in a VM may require hacks and unsupported configurations, and even then there's no guarantee on how well or stably they will run. 



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    - Paul (technogeezer)
    vExpert 2025
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