Submitted by YouTube has cool video showing Windows games using DirectX running inside VMware Fusion for Mac OS X. This is demonstrating full DirectX 8.1 support inside Windows XP virtual machines.
DirectX 3D Graphics in VMware Fusion for Mac OS X
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…wouldn’t it be enabled by default, btw?
Erm, because it’s new technology and possibly highly unstable?
Quite amazing, actually. Well done VMWare. Personally, I expected OpenGL to get remapped first (since it would map to Mac OSX native OpenGL), this way they’re probably using something similar to vr3d (the old mob who remapped DirectX to OpenGL).
Anyhow, Parallels has an extremely strong competitor on the Mac side.
Well I see there running 3DMark2001SE Im wondering what kind of score they got?
Well I see there running 3DMark2001SE Im wondering what kind of score they got?
The perf can’t be that good.
All it needs is to be “good enough”!
Now we either need 3D graphics in Parallels or something akin to coherence in VMware.
That would be a good reason. But if it is highly unstable, why wrap it into the product and advertise it? And answering “because they need people to test it to make it better” isn’t fair.
That would be a good reason. But if it is highly unstable, why wrap it into the product and advertise it?
They didn’t. As far as I know this is a leaked, “unauthorized” video.
That would be a good reason. But if it is highly unstable, why wrap it into the product and advertise it?
It’s not advertised, and indeed it’s not even a product yet—Fusion is currently a public beta.
Disclaimer: I work at VMware.I am not one of the fusion devs but am very familiar with the product.
The 3D feature has been in VMware workstation since version 5.5 It has been labeled experimental and can only be enabled by manually editing a vmx file in 5.5. In version 6 and fusion this will be a check box in an advanced option.
Alot of work is being done on 3D now. Implementing it was not an easy task. 3D is something that was added in mainly to address the concerns of CAD and other 3D modeling programs of the type. For about a year now, the focus has shifted to making 3D work on all things 3D rather than a focused niche.
We were hoping to release the beta2 and high lighting the 3d feature along with some other “surprises” (that is all I will say).
The timing of this video kind of shadows the IPO announcement which is great for us and our customers as that will mean we can expand at a larger pace and dedicate more resources to creating products our customers want.
DX work is currently progressing rapidly. Some DX9.0 games WILL play in Fusion and workstation…however it is not %100 yet. Hence experimental. I hope this answers some questions.
Since the 3D feature is similar to the one in workstation feel free to try out games on the Linux version of Workstation and post to http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=482829벚…
It is a Psdueo HCL for games. I can make the devs aware of the forum and with some community support maybe the 3D can be improved and developed quicker.
So yes one reason 3D is there to have people test it BUT it is not there only for that. There are legitimate customers who use that feature in production environments as is.
Edited 2007-02-08 23:21
While on the subject, any idea if/when DX support will make its way into Linux?
AFAIR, neither VMWare Server 1.01 nor workstation 5.5 support OGL/D3D under Linux host.
EDIT: Ignore me.
After I re-read you post I got the answer – VMW 6.0.
Thanks,
– Gilboa
Edited 2007-02-10 14:16
I read somewhere that the video cards manufacturers (ATI specifically) had been looking into a way to make their video hardware access virtualizable (so host OSs could use their own native drivers). What ever happened to that? Is that on the horizon, or was it just someone’s pipe dream?
In a perhaps completely unrelated note, MS was able to virtualize hardware within itself. That hardware was a wireless network card, and the virtualization was used to enable the card to connect to more than one wireless network at the same time.
Could the same ever be possible with video hardware? So that it could be available to more than one host OS at a time?
I was suspecting VMware team was cooking something special with Parallels getting better and better. Nice to see it’s 3D acceleration.
You guys just rock. Take care of World of Warcraft 😉
Edit: oh, wait. WoW is already on Mac. My iBook is just below minimun requirements. Me stupid
Edited 2007-02-08 23:58
Wow this is looking nice although just about millions of questions pop into my mind. ><
What resolution was it running those games? What Gfx card was used ?
About virtualizable hardware. I “think” this is already the case in Direct X 10 Hardware. And i was thinking PCI – Express 2.0 is working on a virtualization spec as well. Which will allow the Guest OS to see the PCI express hardware. In simple terms that should mean it should allow Guest OS to see your PCI express 2.0 Gfx as well. Which seems to be a much cleaner and simpler solution.
Thats an very old thing, I wonder when it will come to any virual maschine on Windows … on Amiga Emulator UAE for Windows, that thing is used for years … ok, if it have been available all the time, PC hardware wouldn´t sold as much as in that time …
Would be even more nice if we could see that feature in other virtualization solutions (e.g.MOL), too.
They probably have their own custom 3D windows drivers for this, so implementation is just underneath D3D libraries, in relatively high-level kernel calls which 3D driver implements. This should be simple enough to wrap to host OpenGL stack, not harder to do than e.g. Wine (in fact simpler as they don’t have to replicate whole D3D userspace stack).
I hope performance will be good enough for serious playing (not the newest stuff but…). Not native speed I suppose, but at least same order of magnitude – native/2 may be realistic. It will actually depend on what game is designed to do, on x86 virtualisation performance and probably on amount of “ping-pong” between game and host OpenGL driver which usually introduces overhead and latency, as there is one extra execution layer (game->wmware “kernel” driver (links libGL)-> host DRM) compared to native case (game->kernel driver).