Switch android x86 screen resolution

gberes picture gberes · Jun 1, 2011 · Viewed 170.8k times · Source

I would like to use Android-x86 2.2 as an emulator on my Windows 7. I have downloaded VirtualBox and the ISO, and I've made a virtual machine with it, but I can't set the resolution to 320x480 or something similar.

The following tutorial "Using the Android-x86 Port as your Emulator" suggests to insert:

<ExtraDataItem name="CustomVideoMode2" value="320x480x16" />

to my .vbox file and I did it. Then I added UVESA_MODE=320x480 and vga=ask to the boot config. When it boots, I have to press Enter to see the available options, but there is no 320x480 among them. How can I get it to work?

Answer

surlac picture surlac · Nov 25, 2011

To change the Android-x86 screen resolution on VirtualBox you need to:

  1. Add custom screen resolution:
    Android <6.0:

    VBoxManage setextradata "VM_NAME_HERE" "CustomVideoMode1" "320x480x16"
    

    Android >=6.0:

    VBoxManage setextradata "VM_NAME_HERE" "CustomVideoMode1" "320x480x32"
    
  2. Figure out what is the ‘hex’-value for your VideoMode:
    2.1. Start the VM
    2.2. In GRUB menu enter a (Android >=6.0: e)
    2.3. In the next screen append vga=ask and press Enter
    2.4. Find your resolution and write down/remember the 'hex'-value for Mode column

  3. Translate the value to decimal notation (for example 360 hex is 864 in decimal).

  4. Go to menu.lst and modify it:
    4.1. From the GRUB menu select Debug Mode
    4.2. Input the following:

    mount -o remount,rw /mnt  
    cd /mnt/grub  
    vi menu.lst
    

    4.3. Add vga=864 (if your ‘hex’-value is 360). Now it should look like this:

    kernel /android-2.3-RC1/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot_hardware=eeepc acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode DPI=160 UVESA_MODE=320x480 SRC=/android-2.3-RC1 SDCARD=/data/sdcard.img vga=864

    4.4. Save it:

    :wq
    
  5. Unmount and reboot:

    cd /
    umount /mnt
    reboot -f
    

Hope this helps.