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Problems with Virtual DICE

If you're having trouble with Virtual DICE, these suggestions may help.

Problem: the Virtual DICE screen is too small

When you install it, the screen resolution in Virtual DICE is set to 800x600. To increase that:

  1. Boot Virtual DICE.
  2. In Virtual DICE, open Monitor Preferences. (From the menu, choose PreferencesDisplays).
  3. Change Resolution to your preferred resolution.
  4. Click Apply.

Problem: everything is tiny

If everything in your Virtual DICE VM looks very small, no matter what resolution you try, then try switching your VM to Scaled mode then resizing the window with your pointer.

Problem: USB

To connect a USB peripheral to Virtual DICE - other than keyboards and mice, which should just work - you'll need to enable USB. Virtual DICE ships with USB support disabled, because it needs the VirtualBox Extension Pack, which we're not allowed to redistribute.

To add USB support, look in the Downloads section of ⇒ virtualbox.org for the VirtualBox version Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack. Once you have installed that on your computer, try enabling USB support for Virtual DICE using VirtualBox Settings.

Problem: hardware acceleration

If VirtualBox gives a message like this - VT-x/AMD-V hardware acceleration is not available on your system. Your 64-bit guest will fail to detect a 64-bit CPU and will not be able to boot - then you should enable hardware acceleration (sometimes called "virtualization technology") in your computer's BIOS. If this isn't possible, then you should disable hardware acceleration for Virtual DICE.

To enable hardware acceleration on a PC, reboot it and enter the BIOS settings, and enable anything labelled Virtualization or VT for Direct I/O or similar. You may find these in the Security section of your computer's BIOS settings. Save your settings and reboot, then try Virtual DICE again.

This is how to disable hardware acceleration for Virtual DICE: highlight the Virtual DICE VM but make sure it is not running; click 'Settings' then 'System' then 'Acceleration' and untick ‘Enable VT-x/AMD-V’. Click 'OK' to save that setting then try Virtual DICE again.

Other problems

If you have a problem which isn't listed here please ⇒ get in touch.

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Virtual DICE.

Last reviewed: 
06/10/2023

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