Insufficient virtual machine video RAM

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• A virtual machine has run of out RAM for the display setting
• You see an insufficient video RAM message:
  
  Insufficient video RAM. The maximum resolution of the virtual machine will be limited to 1176x885. To use the configured maximum resolution of 2560x1600, increase the amount of video RAM allocated to this virtual machine by setting svga.vramSize="16384000" in the virtual machine's configuration file.
  
  
• In the /var/log/vmware/hostd.log file, you see the message:
  
  <YYYY-MM-YY> <time>.436Z [22AB9B90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/556dce64-961ac761-9434-e4115b9739ee/VirtualMachine/VirtualMachine.vmx'] Handling message _vmx1: Insufficient video RAM. The maximum resolution of the virtual machine will be limited to 1672x1254. To use the configured maximum resolution of 2560x1600, increase the amount of video RAM allocated to this virtual machine by setting svga.vramSize="16384000" in the virtual machine's configuration file.</time>

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Resolution

This is an informational message stating that large screen resolutions are not supported. This message does not indicate a problem.

VMware recommends that you accept the current maximum settings. If, however, you require a larger screen resolution, you can increase the svga.vramSize setting.

To increase the svga.vramSize setting:

1. Power off the virtual machine.
2. Right-click on the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
3. Click the Hardware tab.
4. Click Video Card.
5. Select Enter total video RAM and enter a higher value.
6. Click OK.
7. Power on the virtual machine.

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

• 日本語: 仮想マシン ビデオ RAM の容量不足 (2094330)
  
• 简体中文: 虚拟机视频内存不足 (2101605)