Which graphics cards can VirtualBox emulate

Question

I'm trying to install various OSs on virtual machines. Oracle VirtualBox has some limited options about the VM's graphics, and I can't choose which graphics card to emulate. When installing an OS on a VM, it's autodetected as Standard VGA. I can manually make the OS use the generic SVGA driver, which works, but still has rather limited modes: 1024x768 with up to 256 colours and 800x600 with up to 16k colours. But which graphic adapter does it actually emulate?

You can choose to give it up to 128MB memory whereas the SVGA uses more like 1MB (unless you use a ridiculously big virtual virtual display or loads of virtual monitors). I could try to guess which driver to use but the choice is vast - several makes and loads of models each.

So... can I somehow choose which graphics card to emulate? Or if not, which one does it emulate (or is compatible with), and therefore which driver can I use, better than SVGA?

EDIT

I'm trying to run Windows 98 on the virtual machine. It auto-detects it as VGA but allows me to override it by choosing among hundreds of drivers. The best generic one is SVGA but that's not good enough. I know that newer systems, Linux or Windows, can auto-detect it and make a good use of it.

Solution 1

You cannot chose the video card that is emulated in VirtualBox. It does not emulate any physical card. As per the official VirtualBox documentation:

Graphics. The Oracle VM VirtualBox graphics device, sometimes referred to as a VGA device, is not based on any physical counterpart. This is unlike nearly all other emulated devices. It is a simple, synthetic device which provides compatibility with standard VGA and several extended registers used by the VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE).

Solution 2

No you can't choose which card to emulate in most cases. If you want to use a non VGA driver the common way is to install the guest addition for your virtualization solution of choice. They contain a driver that is compatible with the card that is being emulated. Graphic cards are quite complex an emulation is even more complex if you need to map whatever feature set the card has on whatever is physically available. Most systems that support this do so for very old cards and a very specialized.

The default VGA drivers are mean tot be run with most cards that are VGA compliant because they implement a base set. Using a different driver might work but is ultimately a guessing game. You'd have to dig into the various drivers to figure out which feature sets they support or have to have a look at vendor documentation for the virtualization solution.

Another option that's available in some cases is a pass through of the/a physical card to the VM. Allowing it to directly use the card in which case the regular drivers should work.

Comments

[Ramhound]

This does not really answer the author's question, "can I somehow choose which graphics card to emulate?", installing the guest additions won't allow the author to choose which graphics card to emulate.

[Seth]

@Ramhound changed it from an implicit no an explicit one. Especially with VirtualBox there simply is no option to choose which card to emulate and the correct approach is to install the guest additions of the default drivers of your OS of choice are insufficient.

[Heimdall]

OK, so it emulates a made up graphic card. But I still need to know which driver I need so that the guest OS can use it properly. Has anyone else tried?

[essjae]

Beyond standard VGA, the only drivers for the video card are included with the VirtualBox Guest Additions.