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-- Ben Armstrong, Virtualization Program Manager

Talking about core virtualization at Microsoft (Hyper-V, Virtual PC and Virtual Server).
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UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

I am going to move on from the Command and Conquer series.  The reason for this is that I cannot get the remaining games to run under Virtual PC.  Command and Conquer - Tiberian Sun - has a copy protected CD that does not seem to work inside of Virtual PC.  Command and Conquer - Generals - requires 3D video support which we do not provide.

So - the next series to look at under Virtual PC is the X-COM series.  This is another classic set of games.  I have spent many days playing the first game in this series, X-COM: UFO - Enemy Unknown.  This is an excellent combination of resource management and base building along with turn based battles.  It was also very atmospheric for it's day (especially when performing a night raid on an alien mothership).

The only problem I have encountered running UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC is that my computer is too fast.  The best way that I have found to deal with this is to use the 'SlowDown' tool from http://community.the-underdogs.org/pub/tools/slowdown/.  I have found this tool to be much more effective than the usual 'MoSlo' utility - and it works with batch files (such as are used by UFO - Enemy Unknown).  On my AMD Opteron 246 I need to run 'SLOWDOWN /P:40' in order to have the game remain playable.

UFO - Enemy Unkown under Virtual PC   UFO - Enemy Unkown under Virtual PC   UFO - Enemy Unkown under Virtual PC   UFO - Enemy Unkown under Virtual PC

Cheers,
Ben
Published Tuesday, November 09, 2004 2:03 AM by Virtual PC Guy

Comments

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

You mentioned an x64 PC, so I'll ask this here ;-)

If the PC is booted in long mode, running the x64 edition of Windows XP/Server 2003, does Virtual PC work? Does it emulate 16-bit code? If it doesn't, can you say anything about your plans for 64-bit compatibility?
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 6:56 AM by Mike Dimmick

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

i LOVE this game so much. best game ever I think.

I've been trying to play this fgame for years, I'm going to try this slowdown tool...
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 7:17 AM by Sam

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

This brings a tear to my eye... unrivaled, unmatched classics... games like that arent made any more :( I bought a Pentium 1 two years ago just so I can play Appocalyps
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 8:45 AM by Alex

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

DOSBox (google it, you'll find it and love it) is a better (and free!) way to run old DOS games like this.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 10:06 AM by sdffd

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

These blogs are terrific. VPC has given a whole new meaning to 'multitasking' :)

VPC in itself has a lot of potential, specially in terms of "taking your desktop anywhere, anytime" I can already picture large corporations hosting VPC images of each worker on a central server, and people can just "take their computer on the go" by simply copying their VPC image into their laptop.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 11:30 AM by Jon

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

Mike,

VPC doesn't work under a 64-bit OS. VPC doesn't emulate any code 16-bit or otherwise, it emulates x86 hardware.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 4:59 PM by Steve

# re: UFO - Enemy Unknown under Virtual PC

Mike -

Steve is correct, I am running Windows 32-bit on my AMD64

Cheers,
Ben
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 5:43 PM by Virtual PC Guy
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