Virtual Machines

Matt_Hirst · 6 May 2010 at 14:00

I have a number of virtual machines, using Virtual PC, set up on my desktop pc, on one of the virtual machines we have a graphics intensive application however the graphics side of things seems very poor. Reason for running in a Virtual Machine is that the software doesn't like it when installed with the other applications on this Pc.

Looking at the drivers installed for the virtual machines it would appear it is an VM machines S3 Trio32/64 and looking under hardware it says the same.

Is it just a driver issue / setup issue? Is there anything I can do to get this software to run with the actual card that is installed?

Now I have never done anything with virtual machines so don't have a clue what I need to do on this, neither does the IT department here - hence I am asking the question on here.

regards,

Matt

Django x2 · 6 May 2010 at 14:03

Hmm, this is a tricky area. What software is the VM running on (Hyper Vm VMware, etc).

Some just don't do graphics very well as they don't pass through from the host. I think the only one that does, effectively, using the gfx, is virtual box

Matt_Hirst · 6 May 2010 at 14:08

Thanks for the reply, have edited my original post with some more info.

regards,

Matt

Matt_Hirst · 6 May 2010 at 14:29

Another question doe sthe Intel Q9550 have hardware virtualisation?

regards,

Matt

PistolPete · 6 May 2010 at 14:47

Yes the Q9550 supports hardware virtualisation.

The guest hardware presenting a S3 is fairly normal as it's a very lowl level card to emulate. Depending on the platform you can get add ins that give you better performance / hardware emulated but it still pretty pants. Sounds like you may be stuck.

J.B · 6 May 2010 at 14:47

q9550 does have hardware virtualisation I think, might be wrong.

What kind of graphics intensive things are you doing?

I find VirtualBox is the best for graphics stuff once you've installed the 'Guest Additions' on the guest OS.

Matt_Hirst · 6 May 2010 at 15:28

I do a lot of work with openmap and need to display a lot of things on screen at any one time. Whilst the mcahine is fine at displaying openmap when not in a virtual pc as soon as I put the software in virtual pc openmap stalls masssively.

However running the software allied to openmap runs beautifly and never crashes in a virtual pc but is a complete waste of time when running it with all the other software I have installed. Seems to be a catch22 situation.

regards,

Matt