VM: Things I should've asked.

[Toothless]

So in an attempt to support a friend in testing goodies, I'm diving into virtual machines with no clue on what I'm doing. WOOOOOOOO.

I'm trying out VMware Workstation 12 with W8.1 AND Win7 (at once with two threads per machine and 4GB memory each and they share an empty HDD.)

So my real questions are what issues should I see come up? Is it like a desktop in a desktop? Should I treat it as a normal desktop that is sharing my physical desktop? The last time I attempted this didn't go too well.

 

[silkstone]

You'll get an OS in a window that can be made to go full screen. If you've used a multi desktops feature, kinda like that, but each will have its own segregated storage space.

 

[Toothless]

So far I changed it to 2 threads/3GB per VM and so far it's pretty fun. I'll get more testing running.

I just gotta finish downloading the game that we're modding out on both vms and we should be good to go for testing. This is so much fun but good lord i need more rams.

 

[silkstone]

So far I changed it to 2 threads/3GB per VM and so far it's pretty fun. I'll get more testing running.

I just gotta finish downloading the game that we're modding out on both vms and we should be good to go for testing. This is so much fun but good lord i need more rams.

You ram should be adequate. If you want them to run smoother, get an SSD.

 

[Toothless]

You ram should be adequate. If you want them to run smoother, get an SSD.

An HDD will be fine for now since I don't have any more sata slots open on my motherboard, lol.

 

[Frick]

What exactly are you testing? The VM will not have direct access to the GPU, so most games is out of the question.

 

[Toothless]

What exactly are you testing? The VM will not have direct access to the GPU, so most games is out of the question.

It's an old DX9 game that I used to run off of a GT220 so gaming isn't a major factor. Basically a friend of mine is a modder and I'm here to help test said mod for him. Fun stuff for those who know what it is.

So far everything works pretty well including the networking which surprised me greatly.

 

[Frick]

It's an old DX9 game that I used to run off of a GT220 so gaming isn't a major factor. Basically a friend of mine is a modder and I'm here to help test said mod for him. Fun stuff for those who know what it is.

So far everything works pretty well including the networking which surprised me greatly.

You still might have issues, the entire game will be drawn in software. But yeah VMs are super easy to deal with these days. It's all very PnP, and it usually just works.

 

[djrabes]

With Windows 10 Pro, you can use Hyper-V, its quite simple to use and its free. Turn it on in Program and Features.

VMs are quite fun to mess about with. Only problems I've had is with Server 2003 and XP with finding an Ethernet driver.

 

[Nosada]

Only problems I've had is with Server 2003 and XP with finding an Ethernet driver.

Installing VMWare tools (inside the VM) should fix that for you.

 

[McSteel]

You still might have issues, the entire game will be drawn in software.

Not necessarily, his CPU supports VT-d and he uses a compatible nVidia GPU, meaning the VM should be able to talk to the GPU directly.... With a bit of work.

 

[djrabes]

So far I changed it to 2 threads/3GB per VM and so far it's pretty fun. I'll get more testing running.

I just gotta finish downloading the game that we're modding out on both vms and we should be good to go for testing. This is so much fun but good lord i need more rams.

I would create some VMs and mess about with Windows Server. Create a Server, mess about with Active Directory, Group Policy, File Shares. It's always fun to mess with something different, It's not really too hard to get all started, it's only when something doesn't work that it could get a bit tricky to find the root of the issue.

 

[Toothless]

So an update from last night.

The VMs survived all night with no issues so this is much more stable than when i tried years ago.

The games are running perfectly besides a known bug with the ingame camera. The only issue is load times from two VMs running off one HDD but its not much of an issue to me.

I should try linux now.

 

[cdawall]

Not necessarily, his CPU supports VT-d and he uses a compatible nVidia GPU, meaning the VM should be able to talk to the GPU directly.... With a bit of work.

You are understating the amount of work it takes to get direct access even using the nv cards.

 

[Frick]

So an update from last night.

The VMs survived all night with no issues so this is much more stable than when i tried years ago.

The games are running perfectly besides a known bug with the ingame camera. The only issue is load times from two VMs running off one HDD but its not much of an issue to me.

I should try linux now.

Run Windows 7 in a VM. Run XP Mode inside that. Run ScummVM inside that. Launch Day of the Tentacle, play Maniac Mansion inside that game.

 

[cdawall]

Run Windows 7 in a VM. Run XP Mode inside that. Run ScummVM inside that. Launch Day of the Tentacle, play Maniac Mansion inside that game.

oddly specific...

 

[Frick]

oddly specific...

Just adding more levels.

 

[Toothless]

Just adding more levels.

Not enough layers

 

[Nosada]

Not necessarily, his CPU supports VT-d and he uses a compatible nVidia GPU, meaning the VM should be able to talk to the GPU directly.... With a bit of work.

True, but passthrough means the resource is no longer available to the host machine, so to do this you'd need at least an iGPU to keep a seperate view on the host machine.

That said, this has been done and apparently works fairly smoothly.

 

[Toothless]

Thing is I'd like to keep my SLI on and when the VMs are on, they're running off the HD4000 monitors.