Virtually New to Virtualization

[HammerHead]

Is it possible or even reasonable to start a virtual disk with Win 7 as the OS and install a game on it? I don't like the game installed on my regular everyday OS. Maybe the answer is a dual boot system. I am just kickin' it around.

 

[Luckystar]

Hello Hammerhead,

I don't think you could play games on a Virtual PC. Normally the Virtual PC software will have virtual hardware programmed in meaning you wont get the Vram possible and i think its normally Intel GMA graphics that are programmed in.

It may be different for virtuall PC's you pay for but as for the free ones, no.

Oracle Virtualbox - Downloads - VirtualBox

That allows you to allocate 128mb Vram, but you may stuck to games from 10 years ago, maybe older.

So to answer your question... No.

I would go for a Dual Boot if you want games seperate from the main OS.
Just means that you will need to purchase a new license.


Lucky

 

[HammerHead]

Liscense

Liscense is not a problem. What would I do load another disk with Win 7 (dual boot). I'll look in the tuts for something.

 

[pricetech]

Disclaimer: I'm not a gamer. I'm basing my advice upon numerous postings by gamers who have attempted gaming in a VM.

A dual boot would probably suit your needs better. VM hardware tends to be "basic" and you won't have the full benefit of your real hardware.

Just make sure your backups are up to date and it probably wouldn't hurt to image your current OS before you repartition your drive, assuming you're using the same drive rather than a second one.

Have fun.

 

[HammerHead]

Image

I'll do an image before hand. It will be a different disk. I have spares. I am just wondering about having two Win 7 systems.

 

[pricetech]

Any chance your BIOS allows booting to a specific drive ?? If so, that would be the route I would go.

 

[Gu52pit]

Gaming on virtual machine

I have been experimenting with my new computer, installed windows 7 as my host OS and then VMWare Workstation 7.1.2.

I set my virutal machine to run a SECOND windows 7, assigned second keyboard and mouse to only works with the virtual computer, installed Medal of Honor 2010 on the guest machine and guess what...

...

...

IT worked.

I changed the game settings to high and then run a movie on my host machine at the same time. It didnt even lag!

Ok, I overclocked the CPU to 4.0Ghz, but that becomes common practice.

Im currently playing with BIOS/VMware settings to get even better performance, i will write more on my blog soon.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
this is a totally different magnitude of problem compared with "typical VM" type of solutions.

What would probably work -- although a bit overkill is to set up a server using vmware's FREE ESXI and then use the PCI pass through mechanism to build your VM to play the game on.

Note -- VMWARE's ESXI can be a bit picky on what hardware it runs on -- it's really intended as a corporate type of server using things like "Blades" that have basic hardware -- like no CD's / USB's etc.

ESXI DOES allow usb passthrough, has a DVD driver that can be attached to a VM and PCI ( your expansion cards including any specialized video card / GPU you might have) pass through but its NOT a trivial exercise to set this up.

It works fine once you've done it but its not for the faint hearted -- a great advantage is that since the underlying host OS (ESXI) is so small almost the entire machine resources are available for the VM which can run at about 95% of Native speed in a lot of cases.

I agree -- overkill in this instance but it might be fun for you to set it up if your hardware will support ESXI - most installations fail because the MOBO onboard LAN card - usually something like the GIGABYTE one doesn't work. --I've found getting a cheap (19 USD INTEL PRO) lan card nearly ALWAYS works.

Cheers
jimbo