[techie4fun]

Car54, on 06 January 2011 - 06:44 AM, said:

I couldn't get Virtual Box to open up in full screen mode like I can with VMWare, maybe I just didn't know where to click and tick?

You need to install third party drivers or something for VB.

This post has been edited by techie4fun: 11 January 2011 - 04:09 PM

[LiveBrianD]

techie4fun, on 11 January 2011 - 03:59 PM, said:

I use VMware Player for Win.XP. It's FREE! Haven't got the money to spend $189 on Workstation quite yet but I'm envy. I've tried VirtualBox in the past but was not happy with the results so I moved to VMW. Player. I currently run VMW to run multiple versions of XP and Windows 2000 mainly for software testing. I would like to install Ubuntu and give Doom 3 a trial to see how well it performs in the virtual machine. I was extremely satisfied by how well the game performed on my hard disk install of Ubuntu, so I don't see why it wouldn't perform as well in a Virtual Machine. We'll see.

Yeah, but it's emulated hardware you're dealing with. Also, the computer has to run 2 OSes, not just 1.

[techie4fun]

Quote

Yeah, but it's emulated hardware you're dealing with. Also, the computer has to run 2 OSes, not just 1.

At least the emulated hardware works and saves (big word) me time. And if we're counting the number virtual machines that can be running at the same time, multiple VM's loaded with different OS's can be run simultaneously with good hardware.

[techie4fun]

Quote

SO - after all that, I want to know a few things. First off, have any of you tried running your old games via virtual machine? What was your success rate? What did you use for software/hardware?

Waldo, can you run a virtual machine with your hardware? Does Workstation support this? I guess that's what raw disk support means?

[waldojim]

techie4fun, on 11 January 2011 - 06:06 PM, said:

Quote

SO - after all that, I want to know a few things. First off, have any of you tried running your old games via virtual machine? What was your success rate? What did you use for software/hardware?

Waldo, can you run a virtual machine with your hardware? Does Workstation support this? I guess that's what raw disk support means?

Depends on what you mean!

The Main rig? Sure, it can run several VM's all day long. Shoot, I have even left them running while playing Fallout on there. I would LOVE to say the same about the AMD machines, but as I have noted elsewhere - they just don't multi-task worth a flying poo. I can multithread a single app all day, and the Phenoms will eat that for lunch, but you tell it to run Linux in a VM, and do anything else, you might as well grab a coffee... you could be there a while.

That said, in this case, I am trying to use a VM on a 1.6Ghz Out of Order processor with 512Kb cache, and 2GB of ram. AND I am only trying to emulate a 486 DX 66 give or take. If I this was Linux and Doom 3 we were talking, I could see a bit of an issue... I don't know how well this poor laptop can do with that on its own, not to mention how poorly a VM would behave. But as of right now, I have not gotten a simple, turn based strategy game to flow any better than a slideshow! A game that I used to play on a 386DX 33Mhz machine!

edit: The raw disk support, is so that I can take over a complete hard drive (say an SD card or even a real partition). The hope was to bypass an additional layer of emulating the hard drive itself, and managing a dynamic disk.

This post has been edited by waldojim: 12 January 2011 - 03:53 AM

[techie4fun]

What I meant to ask was whether or not you're able to run your virtual machines using the hardware on your computer instead of the hardware emulated into the software VMWare provides. LiveBrian thought this was important, or like I had completely missed the reason for this thread so I am now asking.

This post has been edited by techie4fun: 12 January 2011 - 03:33 PM

[LiveBrianD]

techie4fun, on 12 January 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

What I meant to ask was whether or not you're able to run your virtual machines using the hardware on your computer instead of the hardware emulated into the software VMWare provides. LiveBrian thought this was important, or like I had completely missed the reason for this thread so I am now asking.

No - I just mean that games won't perform as well in a VM as on a physical PC.

[waldojim]

techie4fun, on 12 January 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

What I meant to ask was whether or not you're able to run your virtual machines using the hardware on your computer instead of the hardware emulated into the software VMWare provides. LiveBrian thought this was important, or like I had completely missed the reason for this thread so I am now asking.

The VMs all pass along virtual hardware, there is no method available (yet) to share the actual hardware. At least, nothing I have come across.

[LiveBrianD]

waldojim, on 13 January 2011 - 03:08 AM, said:

techie4fun, on 12 January 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

What I meant to ask was whether or not you're able to run your virtual machines using the hardware on your computer instead of the hardware emulated into the software VMWare provides. LiveBrian thought this was important, or like I had completely missed the reason for this thread so I am now asking.

The VMs all pass along virtual hardware, there is no method available (yet) to share the actual hardware. At least, nothing I have come across.

I wonder if the fact that VMs show the CPU that my real PC uses (ex. Core i5 2.66GHz, 1 core appears; it's really 4 cores on the host) has anything to do with hardware virtualization support. On the other hand, VirtualBox showed a VBOX CPU, and I don't think it has hardware virtualization support.

[techie4fun]

LiveBrianD, on 12 January 2011 - 04:58 PM, said:

techie4fun, on 12 January 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

What I meant to ask was whether or not you're able to run your virtual machines using the hardware on your computer instead of the hardware emulated into the software VMWare provides. LiveBrian thought this was important, or like I had completely missed the reason for this thread so I am now asking.

No - I just mean that games won't perform as well in a VM as on a physical PC.

Thank you for summing that up. Had I not asked, I would have gotten a whole different assumption.

Quote

The VMs all pass along virtual hardware, there is no method available (yet) to share the actual hardware. At least, nothing I have come across.

My next question is- you said the following in your first post: "SO - after all that, I want to know a few things. First off, have any of you tried running your old games via virtual machine? What was your success rate? What did you use for software/hardware? "

Hardware? I use my computer's hardware obviously.. What did you mean by this question?

[waldojim]

techie4fun, on 13 January 2011 - 03:35 PM, said:

My next question is- you said the following in your first post: "SO - after all that, I want to know a few things. First off, have any of you tried running your old games via virtual machine? What was your success rate? What did you use for software/hardware? "

Hardware? I use my computer's hardware obviously.. What did you mean by this question?

Exactly what it sounded like. What kind of hardware are people finding a higher rate of success with virtual machines? The last time I really pushed a virtual machine was on my Core 2 Quad (the last time I really cared) on my Nvidia 750i chipset. I could run damn near anything in there. I never really messed with VM's on the AMD rig as I never had a desire to do so (I disliked how it performed when doing multiple things already, and still want a head of hair! )... Not I am trying this on my X100e, and finding that things just don't work right. Particularly with Dos. So I want to know what people ARE having success with. After I finish my move next week, I will break out the i5 rig, and see what it does. I may also try this on the media center (AMD Phenom based) and hope it fairs well.

Also, for a quick update - I HAVE gotten EMM386 working finally in VMware - had to use the Windows 3.11 version of it. The included version with Dos 6.22 crashes everything. So it seems like I might FINALLY have a winner. One important note from all this: DOS does NOT idle the CPU - so if you have a single core chip, and the VM running, even DOS will RAPE your CPU time. My CPU gets pegged at 100% the moment I start the VM. This doesn't do well on a single core, as the poor host OS has to fight for CPU time!

[techie4fun]

Well, my single core Athlon has a hard time running Windows XP in its virtual machine. CPU usage @100%. Adjusting the VM ram to the smallest doesn't fix it. It seems I need a faster CPU.

[waldojim]

techie4fun, on 14 January 2011 - 10:03 AM, said:

Well, my single core Athlon has a hard time running Windows XP in its virtual machine. CPU usage @100%. Adjusting the VM ram to the smallest doesn't fix it. It seems I need a faster CPU.

You might be making things worse by limiting the amount of ram being passed to the VM, as your force it to swap out to the hard drive instead. If you have 1GB of ram, try allotting ~380MB-450MB (You don't want to limit the Host either) to the VM, or if you have 2GB try allotting 1GB. I have run Windows XP mode on the little X100 (with 1GB of ram to thew guest), and it runs quite smooth. I have been impressed with how it handles MOST tasks.

[LiveBrianD]

techie4fun, on 14 January 2011 - 10:03 AM, said:

Well, my single core Athlon has a hard time running Windows XP in its virtual machine. CPU usage @100%. Adjusting the VM ram to the smallest doesn't fix it. It seems I need a faster CPU.

What's the clock speed?
I've run XP VMs on a PC with a single-core hyperthreading Intel Pentium 4 (2.8GHz) and 1GB RAM (512MB allocated to the VM) and it ran just fine.

[techie4fun]

LiveBrianD, on 14 January 2011 - 03:22 PM, said:

techie4fun, on 14 January 2011 - 10:03 AM, said:

Well, my single core Athlon has a hard time running Windows XP in its virtual machine. CPU usage @100%. Adjusting the VM ram to the smallest doesn't fix it. It seems I need a faster CPU.

What's the clock speed?
I've run XP VMs on a PC with a single-core hyperthreading Intel Pentium 4 (2.8GHz) and 1GB RAM (512MB allocated to the VM) and it ran just fine.

It is 2.6 GH single core. I'm pretty sure it's hyperthreading but I'm not sure.

As for performance, it runs OK with the virtual memory at 382. I know once I start running an application that requires more power I'll run into issues.

[techie4fun]

I know without a doubt that my CPU is not the issue here, but the memory. Even when I'm doing things in the VM CPU usage is still very low. If I was to put 2 gigs in here, man this would fly.

[Rommel]

techie4fun, on 14 January 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

It is 2.6 GH single core. I'm pretty sure it's hyperthreading but I'm not sure.

Hi,

Go to device manager and click on processors.
I had a PT4 with HT technology and it showed as two processors.
Not that it was true dual core but it gave that appearance.

Rommel

[LiveBrianD]

Rommel, on 16 January 2011 - 05:44 AM, said:

techie4fun, on 14 January 2011 - 05:05 PM, said:

It is 2.6 GH single core. I'm pretty sure it's hyperthreading but I'm not sure.

Hi,

Go to device manager and click on processors.
I had a PT4 with HT technology and it showed as two processors.
Not that it was true dual core but it gave that appearance.

Rommel

Yeah I got the same thing on my old computer. Look in task manager and you should have 2 graphs for the CPU. Windows isn't too good at showing that...
On this computer, it appears in device manager as 4 Intel Core i5 750 CPUs - it's actually 1 quad-core!
http://dqkiuw.blu.li...cpus.png?psid=1

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 16 January 2011 - 11:26 AM

[waldojim]

LiveBrianD, on 16 January 2011 - 11:25 AM, said:

Yeah I got the same thing on my old computer. Look in task manager and you should have 2 graphs for the CPU. Windows isn't too good at showing that...
On this computer, it appears in device manager as 4 Intel Core i5 750 CPUs - it's actually 1 quad-core!
http://dqkiuw.blu.li...cpus.png?psid=1

That is the nature of Multi-core CPU's. They show up as SMP single core chips to the OS.

[techie4fun]

LiveBrian:

I've got two graphs in task manager for CPU. They are - CPU Usage and PF Usage, assuming PF is page file.

I was surprised at how well Itunes does with just 360 megabytes of memory. The system requirements push for 512 but I haven't had any issues. I was also surprised to see that including Windows XPs Service Pack 2 onto the OS adds an extra 6 seconds of delay before everything on the user account starts up. That 6 seconds compared to the 2 I was getting without it is a lot. I Might dumb SP2 permanently on my main boot and just use the service packs for my virtual machine needs, since I'm PICKY about my speeds.

Edited for revising and spelling errors.

This post has been edited by techie4fun: 16 January 2011 - 06:44 PM