VMs with high resolution VM console may experience a crash on ESXi

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

VMs with attached consoles on high resolution monitors run out of SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array) or Video Memory.

 

/vmfs/volumes/datastore_name/vm_name/vmware.log

[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) vmx - Tools_SetGuestResolution: Sending rpcMsg = Resolution_Set 2400 1052
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) vcpu-14 - Guest: DXUM_devapi: 52108: Application requested VM3DDevApi_Version6 (0x5)
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) vcpu-16 - Guest: vm3d: Memory required for bounding box of all screens exceeds maximum (required=10099200 max=8388608)
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] In(05) vcpu-16 - Guest: DXUM_devapi: 52108: Topology validation failed, screen memory limits exceeded.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

In some configurations, the default amount of RAM assigned to the VM is not enough to support very high resolutions.

Resolution

Increase the amount of video memory assigned to the VM to 16MB by following below instructions.

1. Power Off the Virtual Machine

2. Right-click the VM and select Edit Settings.

3. Under the 'Virtual Hardware' tab, expand the Video card section

4. Increase the "Total Video Memory" to 16 MB.

Workaround:
It's very difficult to pinpoint an exact minimal amount of RAM for users with multiple consoles or high resolution displays, so the best solution to work around this issue is to increase the amount of video memory (vram) available to the guest to 16MB.