Specifying screen resolution for VMware machines

Today, I was installing ubuntu 9.10 as a VM in VMware ESX. Unfortunately, the resolution available on my Vsphere client (1280×800) was unknown to the VM, I could not choose the same resolution. The solution is to power off the VM and open the vmx file for the VM. The following 2 lines should be added:

svga.maxWidth = "1280"
svga.maxHeight = "800"

When the VM is powered up again, the resolution is known to the system and can be configured.