Total Gaming and Parallels Desktop

List of games/demos I tried and results (I will update this article, I hope)

http://totalgaming.stardock.com/index.aspx
from JoeUser Forums
Hardware configuration:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz (only one core used in the VM)
2 GB RAM (512 MB in VM)

Software configuration:

Apple Mac OS X 10.4.10
Parallels Desktop 3.0 Build 5160
Microsoft Windows XP 5.1.2600 "Version 2002" Service Pack 2
DirectX support in Parallels enabled

This is obviously not a Stardock supported or recommended configuration, but I decided to try it anyway. Object Desktop works fine on Windows Vista on the same computer. The Windows XP VM is my gaming VM.


Defender of the Crown

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista, 800 MHz, 128 MB, 32 MB 3D, DirectX 9.0c

WORKS! (Tried demo.)


Galactic Civilisations I

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 600 MHz, 128 MB, DirectX 8.1

WORKS! (Tried demo.)


Patrician III: Rise of the Hanse

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 233 MHz, 32 MB, DirectX 8.1

NO IDEA! (No demo available. My guess it is would work.)


Port Royale II

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 700 MHz, 128 MB, DirectX 8

DOES NOT WORK! (Starts, displays error I forgot to copy, quits.)


Tortuga

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 450 MHz, 64 MB, DirectX 8.1

WORKS! (Had to switch screen to 800*600 for it to start without problems. Tried demo.)


The Political Machine

Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP, 600 MHz, 64 MB, DirectX 9.0b

DOES NOT WORK! (Tried demo. See error below.)

---------------------------
Visual Studio Just-In-Time Debugger
---------------------------
An unhandled win32 exception occurred in PolMachine.exe [1040]. Just-In-Time debugging this exception failed with the following error: No installed debugger has Just-In-Time debugging enabled. In Visual Studio, Just-In-Time debugging can be enabled from Tools/Options/Debugging/Just-In-Time.

Check the documentation index for 'Just-in-time debugging, errors' for more information.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------


Xeno Assault II

Windows 98/ME/XP, 400 MHz, 64 MB, DirectX 7

DOES NOT WORK! (Tried demo. Says cannot initialise graphics.)
38,196 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
What graphics care you have? I've got a macbook with the gma 950 and when I run parallels with dx on it crawls! If I turn of dx is runs fine so I just run parallels w/out dx and then if I need it I boot up into windows with boot camp. I think its awesome I can run the same windows on parallels/boot camp.

I'm wondering how well multiplicity would run with coherenece, something I should try out if I get the chance, cause that could be awesome!
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1600
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x71c5
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-xxxxxx-139
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.139
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think MacBooks (non-Pro) use shared memory for graphics. That might be the reason.

Parallels with DirectX works perfectly fast on my iMac. Haven't tried it on my MacBook and probably won't. I also don't use Boot Camp. If it doesn't work under Parallels, it doesn't work. I am not going to reboot to play games like in the OS/2 days.

Multiplicity with Coherence will probably display the normal Windows desktop that would be there if it wasn't for Coherence.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think MacBooks (non-Pro) use shared memory for graphics. That might be the reason.


More likely because Intel's video chipsets (excepting the very latest) run T&L in software on the CPU, rather than on the chipset.It's better than 'pure' emulation since it's done at a lower level, but it's still emulation and as such is going to be slow. Even worse when using it in a VM.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top

It's better than 'pure' emulation since it's done at a lower level, but it's still emulation and as such is going to be slow. Even worse when using it in a VM.


Is Windows usually slow on Intel's video chipsets? I doubt it. Why would it be worse in a VM (especially since we are talking direct hardware access here)? No, I think it is simply the DirectX support implementation of Parallels that requires a real graphics card and not just shared memory.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's got nothing to do with Wwindows itself, and everything to do with DirectX. Without dedicated graphics hardware (Hardware T&L, particularly), anything needing T&L (most Direct3D games) is going to be much slower than it would with a 'real' graphic card or chipset. As such, Intel integrated graphics are pretty poor even under 'real' Windows. And running with a virtualization layer may not make a huge impact, but it certainly won't help performance.