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Old 03-18-2007, 06:51 PM   #1
McCloud
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Xorg modules, lsmod and vmware


Hello,

Currently I'm running Debian in VMWare on Windows XP (sorry, it's a laptop from my company on which I'm not allowed to install Linux). I've installed the VMWare tools and my xorg.conf is configured to use the VMWare video driver. However, I find the video performance extremely slow at the moment, especially when resizing or moving windows. I'm running on a fast Dell Latitude D820 (Core 2 Duo 2Ghz with 2GB RAM, Linux gets around 1.3 GB RAM in the virtual machine).

I tried to figure out if the vmware driver is actually loaded. So I did an 'lsmod' and the only vmware modules listed are 'vmxnet' (network driver) and ' vmhgfs' (filesystem driver):
Code:
Module                  Size  Used by
vmxnet                 11200  0
vmhgfs                 39760  0
ppdev                   8676  0
lp                     11012  0
ipv6                  225984  12
dm_snapshot            15552  0
dm_mirror              19152  0
dm_mod                 50232  2 dm_snapshot,dm_mirror
loop                   15048  0
tsdev                   7520  0
parport_pc             32132  1
parport                33256  3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
psmouse                35016  0
rtc                    12372  0
i2c_piix4               8140  0
intel_agp              21148  1
agpgart                29896  1 intel_agp
serio_raw               6660  0
i2c_core               19680  1 i2c_piix4
shpchp                 33024  0
pci_hotplug            28704  1 shpchp
evdev                   9088  1
pcspkr                  3072  0
floppy                 53156  0
ext3                  119240  1
jbd                    52456  1 ext3
mbcache                 8356  1 ext3
ide_generic             1408  0 [permanent]
sd_mod                 19040  3
ide_cd                 36064  0
cdrom                  32544  1 ide_cd
generic                 5476  0 [permanent]
pcnet32                30692  0
mii                     5344  1 pcnet32
mptspi                 16136  2
mptscsih               21696  1 mptspi
mptbase                46176  2 mptspi,mptscsih
scsi_transport_spi     22336  1 mptspi
scsi_mod              124168  4 sd_mod,mptspi,mptscsih,scsi_transport_spi
piix                    9444  0 [permanent]
ide_core              110504  4 ide_generic,ide_cd,generic,piix
thermal                13608  0
processor              28840  1 thermal
fan                     4804  0
So, next I did a cat on the Xorg.0.log file to see whether it loads the vmware driver. It gives this output:
Code:
(II) LoadModule: "vmware"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vmware_drv.so
(II) Module vmware: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
(II) VMWARE: driver for VMware SVGA: vmware0405, vmware0710
(--) Chipset vmware0405 found
(--) VMWARE(0): VMware SVGA regs at (0x1060, 0x1061)
(--) VMWARE(0): caps:  0x000083E2
(--) VMWARE(0): depth: 24
(--) VMWARE(0): bpp:   32
(--) VMWARE(0): vram:  16777216
(--) VMWARE(0): pbase: 0xf0000000
(--) VMWARE(0): mwidt: 2360
(--) VMWARE(0): mheig: 1770
(--) VMWARE(0): depth: 24
(--) VMWARE(0): bpp:   32
(--) VMWARE(0): w.red: 8
(--) VMWARE(0): w.grn: 8
(--) VMWARE(0): w.blu: 8
(--) VMWARE(0): vis:   4
(==) VMWARE(0): Depth 24, (==) framebuffer bpp 32
(==) VMWARE(0): RGB weight 888
(==) VMWARE(0): Default visual is TrueColor
(==) VMWARE(0): Using HW cursor
(==) VMWARE(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(II) VMWARE(0): vmware: Using hsync range of 1.00-10000.00 kHz
(II) VMWARE(0): vmware: Using vrefresh range of 1.00-10000.00 Hz
(II) VMWARE(0): Clock range:   0.00 to 400000.00 MHz
This looks to me that Xorg loads the VMWare driver. But why isn't it listed when I do an lsmod ????

I'm new to Xorg configurations (configured a lot of XFree in the past) and I can't figure out why a module that seems to be loaded by Xorg doesn't show up in an lsmod. This is also the reason that I'm still wondering if my poor video performance in VMWare is due to the fact that there's something going wrong when the video module is loaded.

Does someone know if this the correct behaviour (modules loaded by Xorg not listed in lsmod) or that there is something wrong?

Thanks for your help.
 
Old 03-18-2007, 08:22 PM   #2
luis14
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Have you tried these forums?
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa
You'll want to search the forum specific to your VMware product. Quite a lot of info there.
 
Old 03-19-2007, 05:19 AM   #3
McCloud
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Yes, I've checked those out, but couldn't find an answer. I figured that because this is basically an Xorg module loading question I'd ask the question here.
 
Old 03-19-2007, 06:29 AM   #4
nx5000
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Quote:
This looks to me that Xorg loads the VMWare driver. But why isn't it listed when I do an lsmod ????

I'm new to Xorg configurations (configured a lot of XFree in the past) and I can't figure out why a module that seems to be loaded by Xorg doesn't show up in an lsmod.

You are talking of an xorg module :
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vmware_drv.so
Xorg modules don't show in lsmod because they are USER-space library, used by xorg. It's like asking why gtk library is not listed in lsmod!

The only kernel modules that you could see would be:
DRM driver: this is the kernel part of DRI
AGP core
AGP for your motherboard

Now I have no clue for vmware if you can get dri. That would accelerate things:
This would enable programs to directly draw without passing by the Xorg server.

In other words, is your xorg module DRI-aware and do you have
Load "dri" and
Load "glx"
in xorg.conf
And what about agp?

Also playing with Depth (24) and putting it to 16 could improve perfo.
 
Old 03-19-2007, 10:30 AM   #5
McCloud
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Thanks, I figured it would be something like UserSpace modules, but wasn't sure about it. I'll try to tweak the settings a bit. I think GLX and DRI won't work, because VMWare doesn't support acceleration.

I also found that VMWare Server is pretty slow with graphics. Would it help to connect to the machine using something like FreeNX instead of the VMWare Server console??
 
Old 03-19-2007, 11:00 AM   #6
nx5000
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At my work people use Cygwin X.
Then they ssh -X to vmware (which has no X server).
The X clients are launched in Vmware but displayed through SSH on cygwin/x.

You might try it.
 
  


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