[blaqDeaph]

Hi,

I've got VMWare 5 Workstation, running Windows XP SP2, with VMWare Tools installed.

The Display device is VMWare SVGA II, with 16mb of RAM. The driver is vmx_fb.dll, version 11.02.0000.00.

I was wondering if there is anyway to "upgrade" the display device, ie, increase the amount of video memory, AND more importantly, enable Direct3D Acceleration and AGP Texture Acceleration.

Any ideas? I don't see any options for changing the hardware within the VMWare Workstation.

Thanks.

 

[JohnWill]

Not that I know of, but you could always ask VMWare if it's possible. Think about what you're asking, to emulate advanced graphics features!

 

[blaqDeaph]

Basically yes, thats what I'm asking, it would seem that thats one of the few things that VMWare is lacking at the moment.

 

[JohnWill]

I don't know if that's even possible, at least without a huge performance hit. A graphics processor is highly specialized, asking your system CPU to emulate a complex GDU is a tall task. I doubt you'll see that option any time soon.

 

[blaqDeaph]

I don't know if that's even possible, at least without a huge performance hit. A graphics processor is highly specialized, asking your system CPU to emulate a complex GDU is a tall task. I doubt you'll see that option any time soon.

True, in truth I didn't think that there was such an option, I was just hoping and praying. Afterall, modern CPUs are powerful enough to allocate part of the clock cycles to emulating a GPU, that I'm sure of, it'd just be a matter of adding the software.

 

[JohnWill]

Actually, that's not true at all. Even the most powerful processor would make a lousy graphics processor. A GPU is a very specialized beast, and highly optimized for graphics manipulation. The more powerful GPU's have processing power equal to the most powerful processor, and it's all targeted at doing graphics tasks. This is not just a software issue, it's a hardware architecture issue.

 

[blaqDeaph]

But that's for really new, high end graphics cards right? I can't imagine a radeon9800pro or something like that equivalent having the processing power or a P4 3.2ghz.

 

[JohnWill]

You might be surprised how much it would take to emulate even a mid-range GPU with a standard CISC processor. They really are optimized for totally different tasks.

Sounds like a great product for you to develop, since you already know of one customer.

 

[blaqDeaph]

True, care to join me?

 

[JohnWill]

No thanks, I don't tilt at windmills.