MP 1,1-5,1 VMWare Fusion no more on MacPro5,1

[0488568]

Fusion 12 only runs over Apple Hypervisor on Big Sur. When you run with Catalina, it's the same virtualisation engine as previous versions.

Can we update to fusion 12 in Catalina then?

 

[tsialex]

Can we update to fusion 12 in Catalina then?

Should work, but I didn't test it since I'm not going to pay $99 for the Fusion 12 Pro upgrade to be limited to Catalina right now.

Take a look at the Player version or test the full one with the 30-day trial before spending $99.

 

[0488568]

Should work, but I didn't test it since I'm not going to pay the Fusion 12 Pro upgrade to be limited to Catalina right now.

Take a look at the Player version or test the full one with the 30-day trial.

Yeah I don't think too many of us pay for it. ?

 

[shadow_999]

Fusion 12.1 has the same issue.

It's not about the hypervisor itself, Paralles is also using the Apple one and doesn't face the same issue. The XSAVE seems to be used by vmware for some reason parallels doesn't need.

Here the view of the settings of one of my running VM on big sur.

 

[startergo]

Yes parallels has both Apple and Parallels (kext version) hypervisor options. Both of them work in BigSur. So it is some requirement of VMware in BigSur.

 

[donvito4ever]

No solution yet, isn't it?

 

[JohnD]

Solution? Never will be one - VMWare Fusion on cMP in Big Sur is dead. Parallels works.

 

[sfalatko]

Yeah I don't think too many of us pay for it. ?

Fusion 12 does work in Catalina and Fusion 12 Player is free.

 

[feinberj]

I tried both the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAA== and the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEAAAAAA== entries for Cpuid1Data and Cpuid1Mask, then I tried running VMware Fusion 12.1 with a Win10 virtual machine. I am indeed still getting the error "The processor does not support XSAVE". I am willing to try any other Cpuid1Data and Cpuid1Mask that people can suggest, although after reading through this post it seems unlikely that it will help. I am disappointed that I won't be able to use VMware Fusion 12 in Big Sur on my cMP, as it enables me to use my 2010 Mac Pro for my professional work instead of a plain windows machine. I suppose I'll migrate from Mojave to Catalina instead of Big Sur, and once I get close to Catalina's end-of-life I'll have to start using Parallels. The Parallels licensing model is quite onerous and inflexible, and I am not looking forward to needing to use Parallels for this reason. I have been gladly paying for the VMware Fusion Pro license upgrades over the years, and I really like that they let me use it on a couple of machines. I have 3 Mac Pros, one for production and the other 2 for learning new things (like OpenCore) and testing new software versions. When I installed Big Sur on my testbed Mac Pro, all I needed to do was install VMware Fusion 12 and it ran without complaint. But if I wanted to install Parallels on that machine, I am pretty sure it would demand that I get a 2nd license.

 

[shadow_999]

Good news, parallels 17 is still working on macPro 5,1 on bigsur (OC)

 

[hamishb2]

Ditto - I have Parallels 17 running on OC 0.72 on Big Sur 11.2.3.

 

[s.m.t.]

Just discovered this myself. Anyone running Parallels on Monterey?

 

[khronokernel]

So had some free time today and someone on the OpenCore Legacy patcher discord mentioned VMware Fusion 12 has an XSAVE check. I was curious about this so researched further. The check for XSAVE is present in 3 binaries:

• vmware-vmx
• vmware-vmx-debug
• vmware-vmx-stats

All 3 binaries are pretty similar and are called depending on whether VMWare is launched in debug mode, etc. However for my testing, patching vmware-vmx was enough

The exact check for XSAVE is in a larger function that checks for other important CPU features such as SSE2, NX,XD, TSC, etc. The specific code block we care about is here:

I wrote a patch for my FeatureUnlock kernel extension to run and was able to bypass this allowing vmware-vmx succeed on CPU feature checks:

static const uint8_t kXsaveOriginal[] = {
    0x48, 0x8B, 0x05, 0x29, 0xE7, 0xE8, 0x00, // mov        rax, qword [qword_1012c1b18]
    0xF6, 0x40, 0x43, 0x08,                   // test       byte [rax+0x43], 0x8
    0x75                                      // jne short
};
static const uint8_t kXsavePatched[] = {
    0x48, 0x8B, 0x05, 0x29, 0xE7, 0xE8, 0x00, // mov        rax, qword [qword_1012c1b18]
    0xF6, 0x40, 0x43, 0x08,                   // test       byte [rax+0x43], 0x8
    0xEB                                      // jmp short
};

However after Fusion does the CPU checks, I unfortunately error out on Transport (VMDB) error -14: Pipe connection has been broken:

• Host was a Westmere-based MacPro5,1 running macOS Monterey (12.1 Beta 1 21C5021h), had an RX470 installed

Logs were unfortunately bare:

2021-11-15T16:19:13.472| ServiceImpl_Daemon: PID 687
2021-11-15T16:19:13.473| ServiceImplRef: Before start().
2021-11-15T16:19:17.870| ServiceImplRef: After start().

If anyone wants to try the patch set themselves, I've attached both a modded FeatureUnlock.kext as well as a .patch file (git diff) for those wanting to play around:

• FeatureUnlock-1.0.4-DEBUG-XSAVE.zip
  • Add -allow_xsave to boot-args to start the patcher
  • Note this only supports patching /Application/VMware Fusion. Adjust binary for other pathing
• FU-XSAVE.patch

I might take another crack at it to better understand why the pipe error happens, though my main goal for today's project was to bypass the XSAVE issue and I *technically* succeeded ;p

 

[KvR]

If anyone wants to try the patch set themselves, I've attached both a modded FeatureUnlock.kext as well as a .patch file (git diff) for those wanting to play around:

• FeatureUnlock-1.0.4-DEBUG-XSAVE.zip
  • Add -allow_xsave to boot-args to start the patcher
  • Note this only supports patching /Application/VMware Fusion. Adjust binary for other pathing
• FU-XSAVE.patch

I might take another crack at it to better understand why the pipe error happens, though my main goal for today's project was to bypass the XSAVE issue and I *technically* succeeded ;p

I added your kext to /Volumes/EFI/EFI/OC/Kexts and my config.plist includes the -allow_xsave:

                        <key>7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82</key>
                        <dict>
                                <key>boot-args</key>
                                <string>keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 -allow_xsave -wegtree agdpmod=vit9696 -allow_assetcache</string>
                                <key>csr-active-config</key>
                                <data>
                                AwoAAA==
                                </data>
                        </dict>

I still get the XSAVE error in VMware Fusion. I'm running VMware Fusion Professional Version 12.2.1 (18811640).
Any hints on what I'm missing?

 

[startergo]

I added your kext to /Volumes/EFI/EFI/OC/Kexts and my config.plist includes the -allow_xsave:

                        <key>7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82</key>
                        <dict>
                                <key>boot-args</key>
                                <string>keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 -allow_xsave -wegtree agdpmod=vit9696 -allow_assetcache</string>
                                <key>csr-active-config</key>
                                <data>
                                AwoAAA==
                                </data>
                        </dict>

I still get the XSAVE error in VMware Fusion. I'm running VMware Fusion Professional Version 12.2.1 (18811640).
Any hints on what I'm missing?

Did you also add the FeatureUnlock in the config.plist to load?

 

[KvR]

Did you also add the FeatureUnlock in the config.plist to load?

Yup:

<key>Arch</key>
<string>x86_64</string>
<key>BundlePath</key>
<string>FeatureUnlock.kext</string>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>FeatureUnlock</string>
<key>Enabled</key>
<true/>
<key>ExecutablePath</key>
<string>Contents/MacOS/FeatureUnlock</string>
<key>MaxKernel</key>
<string></string>
<key>MinKernel</key>
<string>16.0.0</string>
<key>PlistPath</key>
<string>Contents/Info.plist</string>

 

[hutzi20]

Are there any news about this topic?

 

[feinberj]

An update on this... Syncretic is working on implementing the AVX/AVX2 instruction for our 5,1 machines, and that includes the XSAVE instruction. If he succeeds, then we may be in business with Fusion 12 on our machines! See his post here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...failures.2283830/?post=30798895#post-30798895

In the thread linked above I asked if he might be able to support XSAVE, and he said that AVX/AVX2 implementation would include XSAVE.

 

[riven2000]

Looks like it's been a while, so I was wondering where this fix is at this point? I just ran into the XSAVE error in Big Sur on my 5,1, in Fusion 12. Two questions: Does it look now like this can be overcome? And if not, does anyone know if Fusion 12 runs at the same or better speed in Catalina as in Big Sur?

 

[sfalatko]

As far as I know it hasn't been solved yet. Syncretic is still working on it as part of a custom EFI ROM project.

Fusion 12.1 (no later) works in Catalina fine which is how I run it and it works fine.

 

[riven2000]

Thanks!

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Parallels is not free, but it is much better than VMWare Fusion Pro. Even P19 runs fine under Monterey on my cMP 5,1.

 

[feinberj]

Parallels is not free, but it is much better than VMWare Fusion Pro. Even P19 runs fine under Monterey on my cMP 5,1.

+1 on this. I'm using Parallels v19 on my 5,1 with some pretty hefty VMs and it works very well. The only thing I don't like is the onerous licensing model. It would be better if you could at least easily move the license from one machine to another (like Office 365 does) but no you have to call them if you want to do that. This makes it impractical to test parallels on multiple OS builds for the 5,1 to say the least.

 

[haralds]

I have made the switch to Parallels on all my machines including a 5,1 running OCLP Monterey and Sonoma.

 

[haralds]

[...] It would be better if you could at least easily move the license from one machine to another (like Office 365 does) but no you have to call them if you want to do that. This makes it impractical to test parallels on multiple OS builds for the 5,1 to say the least.

You can manage the license on their dashboard. If I remember correctly, you can also enter a license already used and have the app disable the license in the other location.
Parallels is more expensive than VMware for sure, but the company is focused on macOS and maintained with frequent updates. They need to pay developers.