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mac/linux emulators for windoze?

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preacher:
Just read the review of vmware and Virtual PC, and looks like these are good products to emulate linux on windows, or windows on linux(who in their right mind would do that). But from what I here these programs dont have what it takes to run games.

voidmain:

quote:Originally posted by ThePreacher:
Just read the review of vmware and Virtual PC, and looks like these are good products to emulate linux on windows, or windows on linux(who in their right mind would do that). But from what I here these programs dont have what it takes to run games.
--- End quote ---


Actually VMware does not emulate the operating system.  It emulates an entire PC, hence the name "Virtual Machine".  You actually install a real copy of Windows (95/98/ME/NT/2K/XP, etc) in the virtual machine.  I have been using it for the last few years.  I run Linux as my main "host" system, and run other OSes (Win2k Advanced Server, FreeBSD, Solaris x86) in VMware sessions, all running at the same time.  The only thing that will not work in VMware running Windows are DirectX apps (a lot of games). Of course I don't use VMware for playing games, I use it for work so it has run *everything* that I personally have thrown at it perfectly. But as I said, I don't use it for games.

Calum:
direct x is also completely necessary for running a huge deal of decent audio manipulation programs, so it is a very good job that i found out now that VMware is no use at it.

I am surprised though, why does it not do directx? i suppose i am missing something obvious here, since i do not really know what directx does or is. It just seems odd to me that if you can install a whole bunch of totally nonrelated software in VMware, yet you can't install directx! which seems odd because isn't directx just plugins for windows?

At the moment i haven't got VMware because i cannot justify installing it until i make some money off my music (since it's mainly going to be used for the one or two full music programs that i have installed in windows), but if it does not do directx then i am glad i didn't pay for it as i would be very disappointed.

voidmain:

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
direct x is also completely necessary for running a huge deal of decent audio manipulation programs, so it is a very good job that i found out now that VMware is no use at it.

I am surprised though, why does it not do directx? i suppose i am missing something obvious here, since i do not really know what directx does or is. It just seems odd to me that if you can install a whole bunch of totally nonrelated software in VMware, yet you can't install directx! which seems odd because isn't directx just plugins for windows?

At the moment i haven't got VMware because i cannot justify installing it until i make some money off my music (since it's mainly going to be used for the one or two full music programs that i have installed in windows), but if it does not do directx then i am glad i didn't pay for it as i would be very disappointed.
--- End quote ---


DirectX is an API for any application that needs "low level" video/sound hardware access can use, rather than the application having to know what type of equipment you have and use the individual low level instructions of the equipment they call directx functions.  It greatly simplifies the writing of the application.

Sort of like "English" being the common language for people of different countries to communicate.  I don't have to learn 20 different languages to visit and communicate with people when I go to 20 different countries.  DirectX (and OpenGL/GL) is the same concept.

VMware emulates all "hardware" including the Video card and Sound card (sort of like directx in itself). When you install Windows in VMware you also install the driver for the VMware video card, no matter what type of video card you really have. I would guess directx would have to support the VMware video card and then it would be doubly emulated and I would think performance would suffer from that.  However, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible and I would be willing to guess that it will happen in the next release or two. Especially since M$ and VMware now have some contracts between them.

And you really wouldn't want to use VMware for something that is very hardware intensive (sound/graphics).  Those types of apps like to have as little else going on on the system as possible. But if you need to use Word, Excel, Visio, Project, Photoshop, Visual Studio, Exchange, SQL Server, etc, etc, etc, VMware is perfect.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

Calum:
so i'm doomed forever to dual boot? i'll just have to get a real desktop computer with decent hardware that works with gnu/linux so s i can use windows as little as possible...

i tried wine for the first time last night and it was well hairy. It managed clock.exe (an old windows 2 program) with nary a hitch (although clock crashed when i tried to close it) and it managed notepad okay, but anything bigger, like WinRAR and so on was too much for it. This should not be borne in mind though, as my copy of wine is 2 years old now. I think i have a newer copy, so i'll try that out instead.

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