Kiosk with macOS in a VM: Enabling Metal support

Description

The newFileWave Kiosk requires 'Metal'Metal support.support when it runs in macOS. VMware does not enable Metal support metalfor macOS VMs by default. ItYou is possible tocan add support, however the detailsVMX providedsettings arebelow Betafor andtesting, notbut onlytreat maythis as a workaround: the VM may become unstable,unstable butand the host Mac may alsokernel Kernel Panic.panic.

Use cautiously

Without theMetal necessary configuration,support, the new Kiosk will not showopen and the user logs willmay show somethingmessages like:like these:

2024-05-13 10:40:15.324 FileWave Kiosk[1241:5674] Could not acquire Metal device.
2024-05-13 10:40:25.936 FileWave Kiosk[1241:5674] Unable to create FlutterView; no MTLDevice or MTLCommandQueue available.

Configuration

TheShut following configuration requiresdown the VM tobefore beediting shutdownits (configuration. Do not paused)edit priorthe tofile editing.while the VM is running or paused.

LocateOpen the containing folder ofthat contains the VM.VM Withinand thisfind willits be a .vmx file. For example, if the containing VM Folderfolder wereis callednamed 'macOS 12.vmware,vmwarevm, the VMX file to edit shouldmay be callednamed 'macOS 12.vmx'vmx:

/Users/sholden/Documents/Virtual\ Machines/macOS\ 12.vmwarevm/macOS\ 12.vmx

Add the followingthese two lines:

appleGPU0.present = "TRUE"
svga.present = "FALSE"

Once added,Start the VM mayafter thensaving bethe booted.file. To removeundo thisthe configuration,change, shut down the VM again shutdownand remove the VM, edit the file, this time removing thesesame two entries.

ItYou may also be necessaryneed to define the aspectdisplay ratiosize in the same filefile. withThis theexample following two lines.uses 1920 x 1080 used as an example:1080:

appleGPU0.screenWidth="1920"
appleGPU0.screenHeight="1080"

AlthoughThis thisworkaround may work,let the Kiosk launch in a VMware test VM, but in practice the VM often crashed too often or became seemingly unusable. SinceBecause the host Mac may also Kernelkernel Panic, recommendation would be topanic, avoid configuring this on VMware test devices,configuration unless absolutely necessary.  Even then, consider undoing this once the test hasrequires beenit. completed.Remove the entries when the test is complete.