Found this piece of info while reading VMWare's Online Manual:
To enable a virtual machine for accelerated 3-D
1. Choose a virtual machine with Windows 2000 or XP guest operating system.
Note: Do not enable Direct3D on a virtual machine that is powered on or suspended.
2. Add the following to the configuration (.vmx) file for the virtual machine:
mks.enable3d = TRUE
This line enables accelerated 3-D on the host. It is required to support accelerated 3-D in the guest and also enables the host to accelerate 2-D portions of the guest display.
3. You may also add one or both of the following optional lines:
svga.vramSize = 67108864
This line increases the amount of VRAM on the virtual display card to 64 MB. Adding more VRAM helps to reduce thrashing in the guest. The maximum value is 128 MB.
vmmouse.present = FALSE
This line disables the absolute pointing device in the guest. Applications which require DirectInput relative mode need to turn off the absolute pointing device in the guest. In practice, this is only required for a certain class of full screen 3-D applications (for example, real-time games like first-person shooters).
Note: If you set the vmmouse.present option, you should also turn off the preference for motion ungrabbing in the Input tab of the Preferences settings dialog.
To turn off ungrabbing for vmouse.present:
a. Choose Edit > Preferences.
b. Click Input.
c. Deselect Ungrab when cursor leaves window.
Source: VMWare Online Documentation
To enable a virtual machine for accelerated 3-D
1. Choose a virtual machine with Windows 2000 or XP guest operating system.
Note: Do not enable Direct3D on a virtual machine that is powered on or suspended.
2. Add the following to the configuration (.vmx) file for the virtual machine:
mks.enable3d = TRUE
This line enables accelerated 3-D on the host. It is required to support accelerated 3-D in the guest and also enables the host to accelerate 2-D portions of the guest display.
3. You may also add one or both of the following optional lines:
svga.vramSize = 67108864
This line increases the amount of VRAM on the virtual display card to 64 MB. Adding more VRAM helps to reduce thrashing in the guest. The maximum value is 128 MB.
vmmouse.present = FALSE
This line disables the absolute pointing device in the guest. Applications which require DirectInput relative mode need to turn off the absolute pointing device in the guest. In practice, this is only required for a certain class of full screen 3-D applications (for example, real-time games like first-person shooters).
Note: If you set the vmmouse.present option, you should also turn off the preference for motion ungrabbing in the Input tab of the Preferences settings dialog.
To turn off ungrabbing for vmouse.present:
a. Choose Edit > Preferences.
b. Click Input.
c. Deselect Ungrab when cursor leaves window.
Source: VMWare Online Documentation
