Player 3 can use virtual hardware version 7. VMware Workstation 9 can change the compatibility to make this work. In VMware Workstation use the menus for VM -> Manage -> Change Hardware Compatibility and change it to Workstation 6.5-7.x.
You should be able to use this in Player 3.1.6 then. Note that this will change your virtual hardware. You may want to make a backup copy, just to be safe.