VMWare has announced a new version of its Fusion virtualization software for Macs. According to the company, VMware Fusion Tech Preview 2023 is a "significant leap forward" for its software on macOS, with the main highlight being the full 3D acceleration of Windows 11 for ARM.
3D hardware acceleration for VMware Fusion on macOS is a major change for customers. It allows better screen resolution, smoother and more responsive UI, support for DirectX 11 3D games, and more. In other words, adding hardware acceleration to VMWare Fusion is like installing a GPU driver on your Windows PC.
3D hardware acceleration is not the only new feature in VMware Fusion Tech Preview 2023. Developers also implemented most VMware Tools features, such as clipboard sharing and "impossibly fast" drag-and-drop. There is also autofit support for dynamic resolution adjusting, time sync, improved security, and more.
VMware also notes that the Tech Preview features an improved encryption scheme, and it will prompt users to upgrade to the new encryption cipher at boot. Since the new scheme is not backward compatible, you cannot use the updated virtual machines with previous Fusion versions. To mitigate this inconvenience, VMware recommends cloning and backing up your VMs before upgrading and testing VMware Fusion Tech Preview 2023.
Finally, in the official blog, developers said they have more features and improvements in the pipeline, so users can expect more additions in future updates.
These updates are most welcomed, but we’re still not quite done with what the Fusion has to offer in 2023… We have a few more exciting features and improvements in the pipeline which are not included in Tech Preview 2023 that we can’t wait to share!
For now, this is just a sneak peek of what’s coming in the following months, and we hope to get your feedback on it so and maybe iron out a bug or two along the way!
You can find links for downloading VMware Fusion Tech Preview 2023 in the official blog. There is also a testing guide with step-by-step instructions for upgrading Windows 11 and installing VMware Tools.