OS/2 guest is limited to 1024x768x16777216 resolution

[Julien Pierre]

I have installed OS/2 ACP2 as a guest, and the virtual box OS/2 additions. The maximum resolution I can select is 1024x768 in 24 bits. This is not much, especially if one wants to open many windows and use the VM for development. I have two monitors on my Vista host, a 24" at 1920x1200, and a 30" at 2560x1600 . I can use the full screen with my other guests (Solaris, Opensolaris, Win7). But with the OS/2 guest, I can only use a small portion of the screen. This is really limiting.

Even MS virtual PC supports a higher resolution (1600x1200) in the OS/2 guest. Unfortunately I can't use both Virtual PC and Virtual Box at the same time - it results in BSODs on the host. I have to choose one or the other.

While I realize the OS/2 guest will never have dynamic resolution support like the other hosts, I really wish you could offer some higher fixed resolutions for the guest, at least standard resolutions like 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, even if you don't go all the way to 2560x1600 .

[Michael Thayer]

Have you checked the section "Advanced topics"/"Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using the graphical frontend" in the user manual? I'm not sure if this is the problem or not, but it is worth trying.

[Julien Pierre]

Michael,

I will try this. But the doc says the setting is about letting guests use screen sizes larger than the physical screen. I am limited to 1024x768 which is much smaller than either of my 2 physical screens. All my other guests (Win7, Vista, Opensolaris) are able to use the full screen resolution - provided I increase the VM's memory to at least 16 MB which is required for 2560x1600x24 bits. This problem is specific to the OS/2 guest.

[Brian Havard]

I have an OS/2 VM running at 1280x800 so it is possible to run higher resolutions. It wasn't straight forward though. I set it up some time ago so I don't remember exactly what I did but I do remember these:

• I added the custom resolution using VBoxManage.
• I edited the \OS2\MONITOR.DIF file and added an entry for the resolution I wanted to an existing monitor.
• Selected the monitor above from the 2nd page of the System Screen settings.
• Selected 1280x800 from the 1st page of the System Screen settings.

If the resolution you're after is already supported by a monitor in the MONITOR.DIF file (say, 1280x1024) you should only need to do the last 2 steps, choosing a suitable monitor.

[hj]

hi, some help but not much! I have 2 os/2 guests, both with additions added. 1st worked ok, 2nd didnt, on the monitor front that is. At some stage the first updated my monitor with the additions Virtual Machine DIf file. I dont know how! The second didnt so i just copied the first one over to the second and its ok now. If i could cut and paste from the os/2 guests i'd do so, but i can't. [DIF Version] 2.8 [Monitor] OEMstring = "virtual machine monitor" and for each model info it reads the same ending in.. [ModelInfo] xres = 1600 yees = 1200 verticalrefresh = 60 --which is my monitor default othervars = 0 hope this helps, if not email me at hj@… cheers hj

[FuzzyFred]

In addition to the above suggestions by bjh, I have also tried in the VBox Manager, File, Preferences, Display, setting Max Screen Size as Hint with width of 1920 and Height of 1080, I still am limited to 1600x1200 by the VirtualBox VESA BIOS adapter.

Any chance that we can get some 16x9 screen resolutions supported in OS/2 (eCS) guest additions?