Gaming in Virtual PC...

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Gaming in Virtual PC...

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14 Oct 2004 1:39 AM
  • Comments 11

Hi again,

A lot of people use Virtual PC for different things.  Our primary target markets are:

  • Legacy application migration in the enterprise
  • Development / test / training / demonstration environments.

Me - I like to use it for gaming (and many other things).  Virtual PC only emulates a 2D video card - so it is somewhat limited for gaming - but what it does do - it does well.

The game that I have played most inside of Virtual PC would have to be Warlords III - but I am also well known on the development team as 'the guy who setup a head-to-head DOOM deathmatch on one computer'.  It's kind of fun to see - but when you win you lose too :-)

Interestingly enough I just got Unreal Tournament 2004 to run under Virtual PC - as it actually includes a software render.  Quality is pretty bad - but it is quite playable.

Cheers,
Ben

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  • Sriram
    14 Oct 2004 2:03 AM
    Gaming on VPC? Obviously you have a lot of RAM :-)
  • thomas woelfer
    14 Oct 2004 2:07 AM
    Ben,

    cool - a vpc guy. now, where do i go with vpc bugs ?

    WM_QUERY
    thomas woelfer
  • Rob Moir
    14 Oct 2004 4:05 AM
    Hey Ben,
    I admit that I'd purely love to play duke nukem 3d and the 1st Quake in a virtual PC session some day! Can't get either running acceptably though.

    Part of the problem for me is that I can't remember all the setup tweaks that used to be second nature back when Win 95 was my _real_ desktop!

  • Knox
    14 Oct 2004 7:50 AM
    I like the idea of gaming inside of virtual PC - haven't tried it yet, but let me know when the 3D stuff works and I'll switch to it.

    Interesting what your primary markets are - I think you should give consideration to adding security to that list: If I'm using RealPlayer, why should it take over my system - it'd be great to use it in a Virtual environment. If I'm trying to use QuickBooks or TurboTax and it foolishly wants me to be an administrator, why not do that in a Virtual Environment.

    Food for thought.
  • Virtual PC Guy
    14 Oct 2004 11:16 AM
    Yup - I have a lot of RAM. My current home system is a Dual Opteron 246 with 2GB ram - and approx 520GB HD.

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • Michael Sartain
    14 Oct 2004 10:01 PM
    > Quality is pretty bad - but it is
    > quite playable.

    Zoom2X is set by default because the software renderer is used primarily for fallback purposes on lower end machines. There is a note (section 3) here:

    http://www.radgametools.com/pixo/PixoWithUnreal2004.txt
  • Virtual PC Guy
    15 Oct 2004 1:11 AM
    Thanks Michael!

    That rocks!

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • TristanK
    15 Oct 2004 10:10 PM
    It *is* cool for games, older ones at least!

    I have a DOS PC VM that I use for the older set of games, particularly the set from Origin that used the "Voodoo memory manager" thing (Ultima 7+). Also, Crusader: No Remorse, and others!

    I had 512MB RAM when I started doing that, but the VM only has 32MB allocated to it, so I'd imagine it would even work on a lesser machine...
  • Javier Luna
    20 Oct 2004 2:02 PM
    Hi Ben,

    I wanna run Quake III Arena on Microsoft Virtual PC 2004.

    But, I have a trouble :(

    This is the message that appear when I intent run Quake III Arena:

    "Virtual PC has disabled live resolution switching.

    The guest operating system has changed the resolution. Some programs require specific resolution to run properly. In order to maintain compatibility, Virtual PC has disabled live resizing of the virtual machine window until the virtual machine restarts."

    Into mi VPC 2K4, appear this message, owner of Quake Console,

    "GLW_StartOpenGL() - could not load OpenGL subsystem"

    My SO Guest is W98.

    Plz, help me. I wanna run Quake III Arena.
  • Virtual PC Guy
    21 Oct 2004 12:57 PM
    Hi Javier,

    I am fairly certain that Quake III requires a 3D Accelerator to run - and Virtual PC does not provide this.

    I will check into this.

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • Chris
    21 Jun 2010 3:35 PM

    Yeah I just installed Windows 98 Second Edition purely to play the old 98' games. My favortie being Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine... which needs a 3D Video Card.

    I went to play it (it installed perfectly by the way) and it just says I need a 3D Video Card. In an effort to fix it, I went into the game's Advanced Options menu and the only section I can't access is the Display Options.

    I guess I'll just wait for 3D Video support.

    Fun for every OTHER game though!

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