Enable 3D Support option is greyed out in virtual machine video card settings

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

When running a virtual machine on ESXi 5.x or newer with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or newer installed as guest operating system, the option "Enable 3D Support" is disabled (greyed out) in the virtual machine settings in the "Video Card" section.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

Cause

This is expected. Windows Server operating systems don't support 3D by default, therefore vSphere Client does not provide the option to enable it. This affects any virtual machine running one of the operating systems below:

• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2019

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you can override the default 3D support settings using one of the following methods:
 

A) Change the guest Operating system in the virtual machine configuration to one for which 3D support is enabled using these steps:

1. Open the vSphere Client

2. Right-click the Windows Server virtual machine you want to modify and click Edit Settings

3. Navigate to Options > General Options > Guest Operating System

4. Choose Windows 8 or Windows 7 as the guest OS

B) Manually enable 3D Support by modifying the VMX configuration file of the virtual machine using the following steps:

1. Take backup of the virtual machines VMX file

2. Open the VMX file, using text editor and add this line in the end:

mks.enable3d = TRUE
 

3. Find out the virtual machine ID by running the following command:

# vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
 

4. Reload the virtual machines configuration file by running this command while replacing <VMID> with the ID from step 3:

# vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <VMID>
 

For more information on editing the VMX file, see Tips for editing a .vmx file (1714) and Editing files on an ESX host using vi or nano (1020302). For more information about reloading a VMX file, see Reloading a vmx file without removing the virtual machine from inventory (1026043).

Additional Information

Ensure that you are using the latest virtual machine hardware version that is supported by the ESXi version you are using.

For more information about 3D support in virtual machines, see the Configure 3D Graphics and Video Cards in the vSphere Web Client section in the Configuring 3D Graphics Guide.
For further information, also see:

Editing files on an ESX host using vi or nano
Reloading a vmx file without removing the virtual machine from inventory
Tips for editing a .vmx file