Custom Screen Resolution for Android X86 possible?

[MarkoT]

Hi,

i'm running Android x86 in Parallels, it works just fine. I'd love to use it for debugging my Android Apps. What is holding me back currently is that i can't seem to set a custom screen resolution for the VM. I'd love to have a 320x480 portrait window for the vm. This is possible with virtual box as described here: http://androiddevnotes.com/2011/03/08/1299521520000.html

I'm sure it is somehow possible with Parallels, too. Does anyone know how? It seems to have been possible to add custom video modes in the config editor in earlier versions. I'm using Parallels 6.

My current best guess is to add some custom video line to the config.pvs in this section:

<Video dyn_lists="">
<Enabled>1</Enabled>
<VideoMemorySize>32</VideoMemorySize>
<EnableDirectXShaders>1</EnableDirectXShaders>
<ScreenResolutions dyn_lists="ScreenResolution 0">
<Enabled>1</Enabled>
</ScreenResolutions>
<Enable3DAcceleration>1</Enable3DAcceleration>
<EnableVSync>0</EnableVSync>
<MaxDisplays>0</MaxDisplays>
</Video>

However, i don't know the lines to add...

Regards,

Marko

 

[buzzert]

I'd like to do this too. Every time I set a custom resolution in GRUB, it appears to scale only with a certain aspect ratio by parallels.

 

[DarrenO]

I would really like to see this as well. Using the Android emulator is pretty painful, and running a separate Android VM works well. It would be great to be able to run a couple of VMs, one in tablet form, the other in (say) 320x480 portrait mode. Any chance of this, Mr. Parallels?

(BTW: Even if not, Parallels is STILL the best app running on my Mac!!)

 

[larcho]

Has anyone made any progress on this? I know how to change the resolution on GRUB but parallels doesn't seem to accept portrait resolutions.

 

[Andrew@Parallels]

Hi everyone,

Android is only supported on Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac.

As for the screen resolution question, please submit the problem report from Help > Report a Problem and post the IDs here. Include some detailed description to the reports so that we can move forward. Thanks!

 

[larcho]

Thank you Andrew, I just did that, the report id is: 21103884

The problem is basically what others are writing above. I'm able to add the custom portrait resolution to the grub config, for example 640x960, but parallels is unable to interpret these portrait configs.

This does work with "Virtual Box", but you have to add the resolution to the vb config file first. I guess there has to be a similar way in Parallels to add custom resolutions.

I'd love to be able to use Parallels for my Android virtualizations, because of the retina display support.

Thank you

 

[Andrew@Parallels]

Thank you, I brought it to development team attention. We do not have Parallels Tools for Android as of the moment and they are working to implement it in the future builds/versions of Parallels Desktop for Mac.

 

[Paul Barnard]

Why is this different from Linux? Android runs on top of Linux and Linux tools already exist.

I too would very much like to use Parallels as a test environment for Android. As already mentioned in the thread Android runs with no issues at all. The only missing piece is to set the display resolution. It doesn't need to be dynamically sizeable like windows, linux etc just a fixed settable resolution. I too am stuck using VirtualBox which works well but is another tool on my system that I could do without.

 

[Paul Barnard]

Why is this different from Linux? Android runs on top of Linux and Linux tools already exist.

I too would very much like to use Parallels as a test environment for Android. As already mentioned in the thread Android runs with no issues at all. The only missing piece is to set the display resolution. It doesn't need to be dynamically sizeable like windows, linux etc just a fixed settable resolution. I too am stuck using VirtualBox which works well but is another tool on my system that I could do without.

Well looks like nothing has come of this and with the combination of the latest versions of OS-X (10.8.4) , Parallels (8.0.18494) and VirtualBox (4.2.16) there are kernel panics. Looks like the culprit is OS-X as rolling back Parallels and VirtualBox doesn't resolve the problem.

Having the ability to set custom resolutions for Parallels is now looking like the only sensible option to be able to continue Android development sensibly on a Mac.

 

[dhoerl]

Did you ever get a solution to this?

Well looks like nothing has come of this and with the combination of the latest versions of OS-X (10.8.4) , Parallels (8.0.18494) and VirtualBox (4.2.16) there are kernel panics. Looks like the culprit is OS-X as rolling back Parallels and VirtualBox doesn't resolve the problem.

Having the ability to set custom resolutions for Parallels is now looking like the only sensible option to be able to continue Android development sensibly on a Mac.

I'm in the same boat. I have an app to experiment with, its rotated 90% to the right so its virtually impossible to test it.

 

[martind1]

I'm also having trouble with the orientation of the screen. I start in landscape but when I launch my app it forces into portrait mode which is unfortunately left to right on my mac (osx 10.9.2)

 

[ErnestW]

Well looks like nothing has come of this and with the combination of the latest versions of OS-X (10.8.4) , Parallels (8.0.18494) and VirtualBox (4.2.16) there are kernel panics. Looks like the culprit is OS-X as rolling back Parallels and VirtualBox doesn't resolve the problem.

Having the ability to set custom resolutions for Parallels is now looking like the only sensible option to be able to continue Android development sensibly on a Mac.

You can use a app called "set orientation" to force orientation to landscape mode.
It works great for me. Although the orientation is still incorrect, at least I can view and use trackpad normally.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.googlecode.eyesfree.setorientation&hl=zh_TW

 

[JonG89]

Same issue. I'm able to install the latest android-x86 in a Parallels VM (Parallels v13.3 on macOS), and it runs great, but it is impossible for Android to run with a "portrait" resolution, as there are none available in Parallels. To see a full list of the available resolutions, you can add "vga=ask" to the grub boot menu item. When I do this, I get the attached list, which I presume is a full list of the default video modes that Parallels is providing to the VM. You'll notice that there are no portrait resolutions, everything is landscape. I need to be able to add custom resolutions to this list (e.g., 600x1024x16).

In VirtualBox, this is accomplished on the macOS command line:
# VBoxManage setextradata "AndroidVM" "CustomVideoMode2" "600x1024x16"

Surely there's a way to do this in Parallels?

 

[JonG89]

The official word from Parallels support is: "Unfortunately, currently customer resolutions are not available in Parallels Desktop. Since then, only resolutions listed under 'vga=ask' are available for use."

So, if you're looking for a virtual environment for testing Android apps (or any other OS not supported by Parallels Tools) using any specific resolutions not listed in that screenshot, including but not limited to any portrait resolutions, Parallels simply won't do it. VirtualBox is probably your best option, and android-x86 seems to run quite nicely under VirtualBox 5.2.

As a long-time Parallels customer, it's very disappointing to learn that a free virtualization app offers a superior feature set, especially in something so basic as screen resolution.

 

[AndreL1]

Same issue. I'm able to install the latest android-x86 in a Parallels VM (Parallels v13.3 on macOS), and it runs great, but it is impossible for Android to run with a "portrait" resolution, as there are none available in Parallels. To see a full list of the available resolutions, you can add "vga=ask" to the grub boot menu item. When I do this, I get the attached list, which I presume is a full list of the default video modes that Parallels is providing to the VM. You'll notice that there are no portrait resolutions, everything is landscape. I need to be able to add custom resolutions to this list (e.g., 600x1024x16).

In VirtualBox, this is accomplished on the macOS command line:
# VBoxManage setextradata "AndroidVM" "CustomVideoMode2" "600x1024x16"

Surely there's a way to do this in Parallels?

I'm reviving this thread with this quote. This is important.