Why no 3D hardware support, huh? :(

[JackOfSpades]

I was anticipating using Virtual PC with Windows XP mode and playing some games, but apparently the version of DirectX that can be used in Virtual PC disabled Direct3D and won't allow you to play 3D games through it.

It's a damn shame really because it's so incredibly good, but so incredibly gimped in this one regard. I hope someone plans to change this!

 

[Darician]

Probably not as XP Mode is designed for businesses looking to run legacy applications. You can however import XP mode and use it in VMware Player, which has 3D Acceleration available. (VMware Player: Run Windows 7, Chrome OS - Free Download for a Virtual PC)

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
you might have problems using the XP mode VM in VMWARE since it will probably want activation as a new XP installation -- and no one as far as I can gather has been able to extract an "Activateable" key out of XP mode. I could be wrong of couse.

I'd go for a completely FRESH XP install when creating a VM for vmware. You can also convert a Running XP system to a virtual XP system (P2V conversion) using vmware's free converter downloadable from the vmware site.

Latest versions of workstation and player from vmware fully support 3-d acceleration - but if the game requires direct access to the hardware rather than use published interfaces then it might not run correctly. A lot of legacy XP games will run fine however.

cheers
jimbo