Questions about gaming in Linux / virtualization

[Tyler Aviss]

Unfortunately if you're looking for free, the only free version of
VMWare is "server", whilst the aforementioned "Workstation" (price
tag, around $189). From what I've read, the existing non-Beta versions
of workstation also have existing support for 3d acceleration /w
Direct8 and OpenGL (just not DX9).
No indication that they're going to add DirectX acceleration to VMWare
server, but that's feature is probably one the worms on the hook for
those that want it. You can evaluate Workstation for 30 days though.

I'd never seen VirtualBox until it was mentioned here, but I
downloaded it recently and it seems quite easy to use. Nice design on
the VM GUI, etc.

Qemu has always seemed a little less polished to me, but it's actually
the first "VM" type program I used. I never did get it to run on
windows, but it runs fairly easily on linux from commandline (various
GUI's are a toss-up as to whether they work or not, depending on the
version).

While there is no out-of-the-box 3d support in Qemu (i.e. an actual
accelerated virtual video-card), there *IS* apparently some support
through experimental patches, but unfortunately the first link only
mentions GL-on-linux-client, and the second link is dead...
http://calamari.reverse-dns.net:980/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#head-6108e69d51592ff96e5e9309559490f8f5bfef1a


For myself, I've come to find that Cedega is pretty good for recent
games, but what I really want to do is get some of my older
98/early-XP games to work on Linux (the ones that often don't work on
XP anymore either). Most of these still require Direct3d, but usually
fairly early versions.

Games:

* Dungeon Keeper 2
* Tachyon
* Beyond Good and Evil
* Star Wars: KOTR
* etc

Too bad most seem to focus on getting the new stuff to work
"perfectly," as opposed to getting the older stuff to work at all.
There's better support for newer XP/vista games than legacy Win98 code
these days :-(

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Jamon Camisso
<jamon.camisso-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Scott Elcomb wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Lennart Sorensen
>> <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Virtualization won't let you use the video card as far as I know, so
>>> know 3D accaleration, which makes that idea useless pretty much.
>>>
>>> It's pretty much down to wine or native.  No other choices if it
>>> requires 3D graphics.
>>
>> The VirtualBox wiki has a comparisons page that shows it doesn't
>> support 3D acceleration.  It does mention that VMware has limited
>> support for it.
>>
>> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VBox_vs_Others
>>
>> If 3D support is required then VMware Workstation 5 might be the way
>> to go - a couple of search results explain how to load existing OS
>> installations into VM's and how to setup 3D for Windows VM's:
>>
>> http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_vidsound_d3d_enabling_vm.html
>> http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_dualboot.html
>>
>> I've used Workstation 5 and was very pleased with it.  VirtualBox
>> became my virtualizer of choice simply because it's FOSS.
>>
>
> Note the section on this page dealing with 3-D and the 6.5 beta:
> http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/ws/releasenotes_ws65_beta.html#features
>
> "Accelerated 3-D graphics on Windows XP guests — Workstation 6.5 virtual
> machines now work with applications that use DirectX 9 accelerated graphics
> with shaders up through Shader Model 2.0 on Windows XP guests. Hosts can be
> running Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Linux."
>
> Jamon
> --
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-- 
Tyler Aviss
Systems Support
LPIC/LPIC-2
(647) 302-0942
--
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