I created a new virtual machine using VMWare Workstation 12.1.1 build-3770994 with a guest OS of Linux Mint 18 (which is build on top of Ubuntu 16.04). I have two monitors on my system, both 2560x1440. I am unable to get this Linux Mint 18 vm to span across my two monitors when I disable "Accelerate 3D graphics" within my vm's settings, I get an error. I have another virtual machine running Linux Mint 17 on the same VMWare Workstation 12 on this same Windows 10 host machine and it is able to span across my two monitors just fine with "Accelerate 3D graphics" disabled, but it is not using open-vmware-tools.
I read instructions telling me to install open-vm-tools-desktop in this Linux Mint 18 guest OS. I did that. Then I reboot the guest OS. When it boots up, I can click on "Enter full screen mode" in my VMWare Workstation menu, and the guest OS occupies one monitor as expected. When I then click on "Cycle multiple monitors," I get the following error. "The virtual machine could not be changed to selected monitor layout. If you just added a monitor to the host computer, you must power off and power on the virtual machine to use that monitor."
I can maximize my VM to autofit just one of my two monitors, but not both. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling open-vm-tools, open-vm-tools-desktop and rebooting. I have tried to use the original vmware tools from /vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl and that does not work either.
In my vmware.log, I get these two lines that happen when I get the error above.
2016-07-12T15:43:19.068-06:00| mks| I125: ToolsSetDisplayTopology: Sending rpcMsg = DisplayTopology_Set 1 , 0 0 2560 1440
2016-07-12T15:43:24.768-06:00| mks| I125: ToolsSetDisplayTopology: Sending rpcMsg = DisplayTopology_Set 2 , 0 0 2560 1440 , 2560 0 2560 1440
2016-07-12T15:43:24.853-06:00| vcpu-1| I125: TOOLS call to DisplayTopology_Set failed.
When I enable "Accelerate 3D graphics" with the described configuration mentioned above, I am able to use both of my monitors. Why is this the case?
I seem to remember having to disable "Accelerate 3D graphics" in my Linux Mint 17 guest vm because it would randomly crash. I can try to run with 3D acceleration on in this Linux Mint 18 vm and see if it crashes, but why is there a difference with spanning multiple monitors?
Thanks.
