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GPU Drivers (Windows Virtual Machine)

S

stahlhart

Super Moderator Graphics Cards
Is it possible to have XP Mode recognize your actual hardware, or is it emulating hardware in software, and you have to accept what it chose to emulate your hardware as?

The reason I'm asking is that I can see where I'd have a use for XP Mode for playing older games -- some that won't correctly install, or install at all, in Windows 7 -- but the dilemma here is that the S3 graphics card that XP Mode thinks I have isn't even sufficient to run a fairly undemanding game such as Dune 2000. I'm guessing that the SB 16 emulation should be enough for Direct Sound.

I also have three unidentified yellow splats in XP Mode's Device Manager -- how does one go about resolving this?
 
Can't be done, as virtual machines don't recognize the actual hardware in a machine. The hypervisor either emulates hardware or provides generic synthetic hardware access - speed is secondary as a consideration to compatibility.

You might give VMware Player a try instead of XP Mode. It has one advantage over XP Mode in that it provides 2-d and partial 3-d acceleration for Windows guest OSes, which might make it a little better for your gaming (Virtualbox does something similar for Linux guest OSes as well, though it seems a little flaky at times, especially on newer distros -- I'm having fits getting it to work now in Ubuntu 10.10).

The best solution would obviously be to dual-boot an XP installation for gaming if you are really that in to older games.
 
Not XP mode, it's just a gimped version of VPC. Other virtualization software supports different levels of 3D acceleration and some even let you pass along full PCI devices to the guest, but that would mean having an extra video card just for a VM.

You might be able to get away with installing the games in XP Mode then copying the installed directory back to the Win7 host and hoping they run under compatibility mode. If that doesn't work, you're probably out of luck.
 
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