VMware Fusion

theBostonian said:

Is there any way to get VLC to work on Mountain Lion being run on a VM in Mavericks? It works for Windows and Linux but I have no luck in getting it to work on OS X for some bizarre reason.

After having explored the issue it seems the drivers for the VM are not very efficient resulting in poor graphical optimisation.

Does VLC work for any virtualised version of OS X? I have SL Server and Mavericks too which I could turn into VMs.

Thanks for any insight

Click to expand...

Why not rewind a little, explain why it doesn't work for you on OS X? Do you get an error message?

theBostonian said:

After having explored the issue it seems the drivers for the VM are not very efficient resulting in poor graphical optimisation.

Click to expand...

Performance, particularly graphical performance is the biggest knock on using VMs. Parallels, does a better job, but you're still running through a virtual environment and that does affect performance. That's why most gamers use bootcamp over VMs

theBostonian said:

VLC simply refuses to play any video; it will, however, play audio.

Click to expand...

What does "refuses" mean? Is there an error or just no video when playing a video file?
If it's the latter, open VLC preferences and make sure that "enable Video" is checked in the Video section of preferences. It may be worthwhile to just click "reset all" to put all of VLC back to default.
Do you have the current version of VLC? 2.1.4 is current as of this writing.

theBostonian said:

an error message came up saying OpenGL acceleration isn't enabled on my Mac and that it lacks Quartz Extreme.

Click to expand...

That sounds like a bigger problem. What computer do you have, and what graphics card is in it?
If that's in VMWare Fusion, the graphics drivers aren't accelerated, which explains that problem.

theBostonian said:

Do you use OS X in Fusion and if you are, are you able to run VLC?

Click to expand...

I don't. VLC has, in my experience, been bulletproof in OS X. That's what you should be trying to solve, not trying to get it to run in a virtual machine.

theBostonian said:

I'm sorry, perhaps I haven't been clear but VLC runs perfectly on my Mavericks un-virtualised machine.

I'm having a problem with getting it to run on VMWare Fusion, OS X 10.8.5.

Click to expand...

Oh, no, that wasn't clear at all. I don't expect it will ever work due to the lack of video acceleration.

Just out of curiosity, i've seen heaps of videos, articles on how to share to fusion, that i already know...

But how to you share from fusion to mac ?

I set up the file or folder on VM to share and with "File and sharing enabled" on Windows, just like i would any PC... it work from PC, but not from fusion..

Anyone know why ? As far as i can tell the "Share" Preference pane and Mirrored options are only TO a VM, not FROM

Once you set up a share in VM, drag and drop a folder in windows to that shared folder and it appears on the mac. I've used this quite often.

Another easy way to do this is use OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. The latter was my go to choice for cloud storage but its competitors have since provided superior storage for less money.

ah,, so the same way..

Coming from Parallels background, where you would just tick a box and those drives or folders would appear on mac to be shared.

I guess Fusion is simpler, since u do it all from guest. I gotta get used to drag and drop to shared folder in vm and as long as it has read/write then its ok.

Tech198 said:

Just out of curiosity, i've seen heaps of videos, articles on how to share to fusion, that i already know...

But how to you share from fusion to mac ?

Click to expand...

You can simply drag and drop files back and forth once VMWare tools are installed in the guest OS.

chrfr said:

You can simply drag and drop files back and forth once VMWare tools are installed in the guest OS.

Click to expand...

I've done that as well, but for me, I prefer using the share so everything is logically stored.

You can also *mirror* your Documents folder (and other "home" subfolders like Desktop or Music) between VMWare Fusion and Mac. Essentially, you're working and saving in the same folder from both Mac and Windows. But, I don't really trust Windows and its apps with my Mac home folder, so I keep it off. It's a cool feature though.

theBostonian said:

Did you even read my OP?
I was perfectly clear but either you lack comprehension or English isn't your first language!

Click to expand...

So do you because this is clearly stated in Fusion's help function and you can find it on their website (they have a special page for it). Open up "help" and take a look at the section discussing how to set up an OS X (Server) vm. It will tell you what it won't support and list "3D accelerated graphics" which is what multimedia apps like VLC need. It's also the reason why any animation sucks.

Also, don't first start a reply with "I'm sorry, perhaps I haven't been clear" and then post a new one with "I was perfectly clear ". It is contradictory: you are either clear or you aren't, you can't be one and the next minute the other.

theBostonian said:

Did you even read my OP?



I was perfectly clear but either you lack comprehension or English isn't your first language!

Click to expand...

At least I'm not lacking courtesy.

It most likely uses the same stuff that things like Core Video and Core Image use (basically everything in Core Graphics). Those APIs heavily use the 3d acceleration features of a videocard.