Display Settings

Video Memory: Sets the size of the memory provided by the virtual graphics card available to the guest, in MB. As with the main memory, the specified amount will be allocated from the host's resident memory. Based on the amount of video memory, higher resolutions and color depths may be available.

The GUI will show a warning if the amount of video memory is too small to be able to switch the VM into full screen mode. The minimum value depends on the number of virtual monitors, the screen resolution and the color depth of the host display as well as on the use of 3D acceleration and 2D video acceleration. A rough estimate is (color depth / 8) x vertical pixels x horizontal pixels x number of screens = number of bytes. Extra memory may be required if display acceleration is used.

Monitor Count: With this setting, Oracle VM VirtualBox can provide more than one virtual monitor to a virtual machine. If a guest OS supports multiple attached monitors, Oracle VM VirtualBox can pretend that multiple virtual monitors are present. Up to eight such virtual monitors are supported.

The output of the multiple monitors are displayed on the host in multiple VM windows which are running side by side. However, in full screen and seamless mode, they use the available physical monitors attached to the host. As a result, for full screen and seamless modes to work with multiple monitors, you will need at least as many physical monitors as you have virtual monitors configured, or Oracle VM VirtualBox will report an error.

You can configure the relationship between guest and host monitors using the View menu by pressing Host key + Home when you are in full screen or seamless mode.

See also Chapter 14, Known Limitations.

Scale Factor: Enables scaling of the display size. For multiple monitor displays, you can set the scale factor for individual monitors, or globally for all of the monitors. Use the slider to select a scaling factor up to 200%.

You can set a default scale factor for all VMs. Use the Display tab in the Global Settings dialogs.

Graphics Controller: Specifies the graphics adapter type used by the guest VM. Note that you must install the Guest Additions on the guest VM to specify the VBoxSVGA or VMSVGA graphics controller. The following options are available:

Enable 3D Acceleration: If a virtual machine has Guest Additions installed, you can select here whether the guest should support accelerated 3D graphics. See Section 4.5.1, "Hardware 3D Acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)".

Enable 2D Video Acceleration: If a virtual machine with Microsoft Windows has Guest Additions installed, you can select here whether the guest should support accelerated 2D video graphics. See Section 4.5.2, "Hardware 2D Video Acceleration for Windows Guests".

Enable Server: Select this check box and configure settings for the remote display connection.

Enable Recording: Select this check box and select a Recording Mode option.

Recording Mode: You can choose to record video, audio, or both video and audio.

Some settings on the Recording tab may be grayed out, depending on the Recording Mode setting.

File Path: The file where the recording is saved.

Frame Size: The video resolution of the recorded video, in pixels. The drop-down list enables you to select from common frame sizes.

Frame Rate: Use the slider to set the maximum number of video frames per second (FPS) to record. Frames that have a higher frequency are skipped. Increasing this value reduces the number of skipped frames and increases the file size.

Video Quality: Use the slider to set the the bit rate of the video in kilobits per second. Increasing this value improves the appearance of the video at the cost of an increased file size.

Audio Quality: Use the slider to set the quality of the audio recording. Increasing this value improves the audio quality at the cost of an increased file size.

Screens: For a multiple monitor display, you can select which screens to record video from.