VirtualBox Update Adds 3D Acceleration and Multi-Window Layout for ARM VMs

Oracle has released a new maintenance update for its open source virtualization software VirtualBox.

VirtualBox 7.1.2 is the first such point release since VirtualBox 7.1.2. Virtual Box 7.1 The series premiered earlier this month. Naturally, it builds on this major release with a host of major fixes, performance tweaks and UI improvements, and adds a few new features.

Among them the latest version adds multi window layout supportgives users the option to: select remote screen security methodAnd Fixes for 3D accelerationRelated quirks, including black screens and various rendering issues in Windows VMs.

A bug fix allows virtual machines to be created using new Unattended Installation While the feature has been properly removed, macOS (ARM) builds no longer show a beta tag, as the native Apple Silicon build is considered stable as of VirtualBox 7.1.

Staying true to macOS, the native ARM build of VirtualBox for Apple Silicon now supports (optional) 3D acceleration in guests. This addition can provide a significant performance boost to those virtualizing desktop Linux and Windows VMs.

There’s still no native VirtualBox ARM build for Linux – come on Oracle!

A few other changes include: Faster NAT performance on Windows hostsfix DHCP issues on specific guests (only when domain is empty) and better error handling when enabling auto-upgrade Guest Additions.

Finally, VirtualBox can now load saved states created for virtual machines in the VirtualBox 7.0.x series; so those who upgrade expecting this to work and find it doesn’t need to fear losing anything previously saved (important) states.

More details here official changelog.

VirtualBox 7.1.2 is free, open-source software for Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon), Linux, and Solaris. You can download the latest version from: official website (redesigned to include features) new VirtualBox logo and branding).

If the latest features and UI changes aren’t as important as convenience, an older version of VirtualBox can be installed from the Ubuntu repositories on all supported versions. sudo apt install virtualbox to get it.