I think I need a slower virtual video card for my VM

[Ketchup]

So last year I built the machine in my sig. Love it. I also run an XP virtual machine on it (Vmware player), just for older games.

This worked great on my last machine (Q6600, Nvidia 9800 GTX+). Ran games great, host was Win 7 64-bit, same as I have now.

On the new one, I am having trouble playing Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Infernal_Machine
It just runs too fast. I cannot move the character accurately at all, making it almost impossible to use. It also crashes a lot more than it used it. I think it is related to the Vmware SVGA II display driver it is using.

I don't remember exactly, but I don't think my old setup triggered such a high-up virtual card.
I have tried player versions 4 and 5, but they both do this.

Does anybody know of a way I can install a less-featured virtual video card on my VM? According to Google, nobody wants to make their virtual machine slower!

Thanks in advance.

BTW: I set the VM up with one core of my 2500, 1 GB of RAM.

 

[MrChad]

Can you run it on your host OS? There's a custom installer available for Windows 7 x64.

 

[Ketchup]

So can I attribute this to your experience with the game or your superior Google skills?

Thanks either way! I'll give it a shot.

 

[Ken g6]

Ah, running a game from 1999 on modern hardware. MrChad's idea may be the correct first step.

I had trouble with Unreal Tournament (the original) when I upgraded to a GTX 460, running under Linux. There's a Windows patch to lower that particular game's framerate, but it doesn't work on Linux. So I just gave up on it until one day I tried it again and it stayed at a flat 60 FPS! I think one of the nVidia drivers I installed turned on Vsync, and that's what fixed it.

So, I would suggest installing on the host OS, ensuring you have a recent nVidia driver, and then trying to turn on - or even force - Vsync.

 

[Rakehellion]

Try to underclock your CPU and GPU in the control panel.

 

[Ketchup]

Thanks for the link Mr. Chad and the vsync suggestion Ken g6! I made the CD off Markus' Homepage and turned on vsync, runs perfrectly.

The game wouldn't install off the CD because I am running 64-bit Windows, even if I choose compatibility mode.

 

[Mushkins]

If you dont want to use vsync for whatever reason or a game doesnt support it because it's ancient, you could use any number of tweaking tools to lock the framerate to something playable. A lot of these old games simply weren't designed with the mindset that hardware would ever be available that could run them in the hundreds of FPS.

I know RadeonPro can do this for Radeon cards, i'm not sure whats out there for Nvidia as I havent had one of their cards since the FX5200 days.