The VMware Player 3.1 Release Candidate includes most of the same great features added to VMware Workstation including all of the graphics, performance and virtual hardware improvements. Some release highlights include:
- OpenGL 2.1 support for Windows 7 and Vista guests: The addition of hardware accelerated OpenGL 2.1 support to the WDDM driver enables many more graphics applications to run inside of your virtual machines.
- Improved graphics performance: Significant enhancements have been made to the VMware WDDM driver that have produced benchmark results that are up to 80% faster. The updated driver also produces smoother video playback and addresses many reported rendering issues. Of course games run better as well!
- 8-way SMP support plus virtual disks up to 2TB in size: The virtual hardware continues to become more powerful to meet the needs of Workstation customers who are running server class applications.
- OVF 1.0 support: Including the OVF Tool with this release enables users to easily import or export virtual machines and vApps and move them to vSphere or up into the cloud.
- Direct Launch: Blur the distinction between running native and virtual applications by launching an application installed in a virtual machine directly from the start menu or taskbar of the host system.
- Automatic software updates: These VMware applications can now detect when a new version is released and are able to update at the click of a button.
- Fedora virtual machines: VMware is excited about finally offering support for running one of the most popular Linux distributions on the planet!
