With no doubt, VirtualBox is perhaps the most popular tool for running macOS Virtual Machine. The problem is, running macOS on VirtualBox comes with its fair share of challenges and bottlenecks. This is often the case if the VirtualBox does not enjoy full CPU support or does not use a graphics card. Consequently, the whole endeavor becomes slow, making it difficult to run operations seamlessly. Fortunately, all these challenges can be diffused by installing a Guest Tool for VirtualBox. The new release of VirtualBox 6.0 which supports a Guest Tool comes with a new VMSVGA feature that automatically emulates a VMSVGA graphics card. With it, you can improve the performance of your macOS and enjoy more processing power.
If you are not aware of what a guest tool is, it is a pack of utilities which enriches the performance of a VirtualBox operating system to improve and streamline its operation. To be specific, it improves mouse performance, enhances graphics operations, and also increases the display and resolution capacity of your macOS by up to 16:9 and 1920x1080 pixels, respectively. So, how can you leverage this revolutionary technology to enjoy a better and smoother macOS? Well, in this tutorial, you are going to learn all that. Have a look!
How to Install Guest Tool on macOS VirtualBox
1. Enable VMSVGA in VirtualBox
Run your VirtualBox, and once the program is up, select the macOS you want to use. After that, click on “Edit” to make changes. This will open a “Display tab”. On it, select VMSVGA then click “Ok” to validate your selections.
2. Mount VM Tool to Mac Virtual Machine
With your VirtualBox running, select the VirtualBox menu. Once open, select “Device” then click on “Optical Drive”. Proceed and click on “Choose disk image” . Finally, Open your VM Tool.iso file.
VM Tool: Download
3. Install VM Tool in macOS
After you have downloaded the VMware tool, you just need to select “Install VMware Tool” and the guest tool will get installed.
Give it five to ten minutes after which you should get a notification about “System extension”. After you get that, select the “Open Security Preferences” option.
After you get that, select the “Open Security Preferences” option. Click on “Security and privacy” then select “Allow” so that the guest tool can complete its installation process.
After ten to twenty minutes, you should get a notification saying that the installation is complete. To complete the installation process, click the “Restart” button so that changes can take effect.
4. Enable System Extension
After restarting the Virtual box, you might a notification saying “System Extension Blocked”. Don’t panic since this is normal. To overcome this, open the “Security Preferences menu” to activate it. The final step is confirming that your virtual box is working well with the guest tool. To do this, head to “macOS” about. If the integration is okay, you should see “Display 128 MB”. If you can’t see this, the installation was not successful. However, you always have the chance of reinstalling the VMware tool.
5. Enable Full-Screen Mode
This is as easy as any other step above. Open Terminal in the macOS and put these commands to activate the full-screen display.
# Sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Tools/vmware-resolutionset <height> <width>
With <height> and <width> represents your screen’s resolution.
If you are looking for a way to spice up how your macOS runs on VirtualBox, Guest Tool by VM if with no doubt the idealist and most effective add-on to employ. With it, you improve not only performance but also the display capacity of your macOS.
![](data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="145" height="100"><rect fill-opacity="0"/></svg>)
Success!!
I had to reset the graphics after reading almost the very last message here. The VMSVGA was not set because I had 3D hardware acceleration enabled (which an invalid configuration) and it was not saved. I disabled 3D and then saved. Then everything worked. I have set the EFI resolution so I don’t get the screen until halfway through the boot. But then it all comes good at the logo and progress bar, albeit in 1024×768. I just leave a terminal open with the correct command for resolution 2560×1440 (which is pretty much max. – it cannot do… Read more »
Thank you!
Further to the issue of rebooting: It seems that
1) The VM reboots every 12 minutes
2) The log show an ACPI reset
3) Removing VM Tools fixes the reset problem (obviously no video switching functions work after that)
4) The machine reaction to mouse and kb slows down, as noted in another post. Then for no reason it speeds up again. There were also some disk controller resets, which abort all in progress transactions, however while these coincidentally occured and resulted in restoring the speed there was no consistent pattern I could see.
Hope this helps.
P
My macOS Catalina 10.15.3 VBox keeps slowing down to a crawl, even after I run the guest tools command with the Tools installed. it expands to 1920 x 1080 and then it. basically becomes unresponsive. I have verified that it’s using 128 MB Graphics Display. Is there any thing else I can do to fix this issue. I’m using VirtualBox 6.1.4 r136177 with the most recent extension pack.
Thank. I’ll check this problem. Do you change Chipset in VirtualBox?
Yes, to “PIIX3” under “System” settings.
Does this work in Mac Os Yosemite?
Yes, my friend!
Thank you! This made it alot smother :)))
Hi
I installed Catalina a few Times, it works, also with the vm Tools, but, mojave runs ways bettet, faster and smoother than catalina
I have a ryzen 3700x, 32gb RAM, 2060rtx,1060gtx, is there anything else that can be done to get better Performance?
Thanks for your really good work!!!
Thank you! I’ll make a tutorial about this!
Hi,
After I installed VM Tool and restarted, it keeps me getting the default resolution. I tried both the commands below but they didn’t work. Need help.
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool YES.
Thank Dave. Does your virtual machine support 128 MB vRAM?
Your tutorials are great. But vmware tools 11 has been released for a while which should work better with Catalina, could you please update the iso file?
Thank Eddie! Check!
I assume the link has been updated? It looks like it’s still the old one as it won’t run the extension as it’s a “legacy” one. I checked the ISO’s info.plist and it looks like version 10.2.5?
I had to uninstall the VM Tools. Once I did, the random restarts stopped!
Hi. Give me a last screenshot?
My vm crashes random after about 10 minutes. How can i fix this:
panic(cpu…): “attempting to …:
Hi. What is your processor?
Hello, it’s an i5-7200U
For some odd reason. If I set it to full screen via the terminal, the screen returns to small size. Every boot up, I would see some squirmy lines on the screen. I’m running Catalina. Maybe perhaps it has 32 bit components which causes some issues?
Do you use this code:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool YES.Did the first code to change the resolution to 1080p, and worked. Then entered the second one, right after, still no error or anything. Continued to restart the machine, aaaaand the resolution back to the default. So..yeah, any other idea to try, man?
Hi. Use this code to fix your problem:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool YESI am having the same issue as Cooldodz. Mojave installed. I was able to install the VM Tool, got the 128 MB VRAM to display, but the resolution always reverts when restarting. The second command doesn’t do anything, and during startup, as mentioned by Cooldodz, the screen is garbled until it reaches the Apple logo with the progress bar. Any other idea?