VMWare video hints at full DirectX virtualization in OS X

Mac users, listen up: a video has appeared on YouTube that shows an internal beta version of VMWare running Windows games at full speed from within Mac OS X. Accompanying this intriguing video is a blog post from Regis Duchesne, a developer at VMWare, who confirms that there are internal beta builds of the program that support DirectX 8.1 virtualization. Regis notes that VMWare is currently working on DirectX 9 support and therefore, compatibility with Windows Vista's Aero interface technology. As nice as compatibility with Aero sounds, the main appeal for the first version of VMWare to support DirectX will be convenience: instead of having to boot into a Windows XP partition or deal with other flakier programs, Mac users will be able to run Windows games at full speed from within Mac OS X. Since VMWare's primary competitor -- Parallels -- has also promised to implement DirectX virtualization into Parallels Desktop, it's still up in the air as to which company will be the first to include this feature in a retail offering. So, PC gaming fanboys, what are you going to do all day now that your favorite phrase -- "Mac gaming is an oxymoron" -- doesn't cut it on the Mac gaming forums anymore?

[Via TUAW]

[catachip @ Feb 10th 2007 4:08PM]

Now there really is no reason to not switch to OS X. Apple just needs to start advertising Leopard! It's so bizarre, they advertise Macs and iPods... but not the OS, that's the most important part!

[Leonard Nimrod @ Feb 10th 2007 4:41PM]

Leopard isn't available yet so there is no reason to advertise it. I'm sure there will be plenty new "I'm a Mac" commercials about Vista's features once it's released.

Reasons why people still won't switch to OS X:
1) They just can't enough of the Start button.
2) Bill Gates gives them a woody.
3) Some people like watching their computer defrag and enjoy running anti-malware software.
4) They love the sound their PC makes when it reboots.

[rockintom @ Feb 11th 2007 11:23AM]

No, there is a big reason: I don't want to buy another goddamn computer because mine works fine.

[Cole @ Feb 10th 2007 4:19PM]

Question, will this work on the old IBM PowerPC cores? Or is this once again an Intel only gig?

[azz0r @ Feb 10th 2007 5:34PM]

Or they enjoy the freedom of changing there hardware when they like, or plugging in peripheral from a wide range, or they prefer the millions of apps out there that aren't available on the mac, or they prefer gaming with decent graphics...I could go on

[Michael @ Feb 10th 2007 4:22PM]

Yeah, games run 'full speed' on that crappy video card that came with your Mac... Sorry folks, but you still can't game on that GMA950 or Radeon X1600 iMac!

Not to mention VMware still has some overhead, so it's going to be slower then a comparible level PC.

"Mac gaming is an oxymoron" is still true.

[Zadillo @ Feb 10th 2007 4:29PM]

For what it's worth, the X1600 is a perfectly capable graphics card. No, it isn't up to par with, say, a 7950GT or something, but as laptop graphics cards go (and the iMac uses laptop components), it is fairly solid. Again, not a high end part by any means, but it's silly to say you can't game on it (just as it would be silly to say that you can't game on GeForce 7600/7700 or X1600/X1700 based PC laptops).

Again, I don't think anyone is saying that it would make sense to buy an iMac (or even a Mac Pro, which you can at least stick a PCI Express graphics card in to use under Windows at least) specifically for PC gaming, but it is at least something that is a realistic option now to get some gaming capabilities, etc. where previously there weren't nearly as many options.

[Tek @ Feb 10th 2007 4:23PM]

Great deal for Microsoft. They get to sell a windows OS to Mac users too!

[Kyle Interra @ Feb 10th 2007 4:24PM]

What would you do about Graphics Cards?

[Ron @ Feb 14th 2007 12:50PM]

Yeah, I've been pretty happy with the x1600 in my macbook pro. Been running Half-Life 2, WOW and F.E.A.R. at 1400x900 with no problems... This'll be a nice change from rebooting into XP.

[Blaine @ Feb 10th 2007 4:32PM]

You know, when you want to upgrade a mac you could always throw your old one away and get a newer one with just as shitty graphics capabilities... but wait, there's the black macbook, it must be amazing! I mean it is more expensive...

[JD @ Feb 10th 2007 5:09PM]

What about DX 10? And I hate to say it, but how do you expect to play good games (and FPS games especially) with one button? I realize a mouse is an easy purchase, but i had to say it.

[Kendall Tawes @ Feb 10th 2007 9:29PM]

They actually ship Macs with four button mice now with a scroll ball that allows me to scroll up, down, left, and right. I however usually just buy third party mice. I usually do that for any computer I buy Windows or Mac OS. After all even the best computer makers don't usually ship the best mice with their computers.

[HART @ Feb 11th 2007 6:47AM]

Macs had come with 2 buttons mouse for years... so before saying something inform yourself

[nizzy1115 @ Feb 10th 2007 4:45PM]

Why not just buy a windows pc in the first place? Or install linux and emulate windows if you really need to. Nothing beats a windows & linux box, not even the black crapple ibook.

[Mark @ Feb 10th 2007 4:50PM]

@catachip: How's this for a reason: it's a shitty OS. It's slow, has no third-party support except for Adobe (and even there it has to run Photoshop in Rosetta), and horribly unstable. I don't know where this myth of Mac stability comes from - the Macs at my workplace can't manage more than 40-50 minutes of loaded usage without going into the spinning rainbow of death.

[Justin @ Feb 11th 2007 5:50PM]

Really should have a worrd to the IT guy, then. I've overlooked LANs with hundreds of Macs, and as many PC's.

It's not a myth that they're more stable, it's an absolute truth.

Spinning rainbow wheels o' death only ever occcured when third party software hogged the CPU. But, um, apparently you can't get any third party software for OS X... so I clearly must be insane or wrong.

[Tom @ Feb 10th 2007 4:56PM]

And I will remain smug the next time somebody buys a Mac, and claims it's better than my hand-built rig. I'll be run for the hills when Apple stops being proprietary.

[bob @ Feb 10th 2007 4:58PM]

well u 3 mac gamers out their, don't hurt your selfs trying to play crysis in dx10 when it comes out.

[peshue @ Feb 10th 2007 5:00PM]

I agree with nizzy1115. Save some cash and dual boot windows and linux. Unless you're one of the very few people who needs programs that only run in osx it's a much better option.

[Sam @ Feb 10th 2007 5:01PM]

@Mark: I completely agree with you, our institution uses a few hundred G5s for all the of our graphic and photo work, and there's always something going wrong with them.

[Kendall Tawes @ Feb 10th 2007 9:29PM]

What exactly are those Macs doing and what OS are they running. I still see institutions running 10.1 which would be like running Windows ME with no virus protection over dial-up and 10.2 is only marginally better. If you judge Mac's by that then yes they would suck. That's what I thought when 10.1 came out but unlike Microsoft Apple has done lots in the OS development in the last 5 years and every version of OS X since the beta has seen speed, stability, usability and support go up by leaps and bounds. My '99 G4 runs 10.4 faster than it did any of the other 10s they made. So while each version of Windows gets slightly slower Macs get faster. So unless you are there actually working on the G5's and can tell me how bad they are from personal experience then you are just as bad as the Mac zealots that say Windows gives you cancer and the lot of crazy lies some of them make. But for now I'm a ex-Windows user who finds MS's cripple-ware sucky and their downgrade of Open GL support appalling. I used Open GL on Windows for gaming and I liked it. DirectX is just too bloated to run as smoothly and cleanly. Once Windows remembers how they got to power in the first place I might go back but as long as I have all the UNIX based OS goodness I need I'm a Mac guy. And yes Macs are upgradable, RAM, HD, Graphics even the CPU everything but the Motherboard but at that point a new computer is due anyway. That's how I replaced my PC's before anyway.

[lp @ Feb 10th 2007 5:07PM]

So the reason Mac owners can be smug over PC owners is because the Mac can now run windows?

So instead of spending £1000 on a Mac that does nothing different to a PC but can emulate a PC now (at the cost of the virtualisation software & windows)

Bargain!

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Feb 10th 2007 5:19PM]

Why not to take best of two worlds?

When I was using Windows under VirtualPC/Mac - that was probably my best experience with Windows - all thanks to excellence of MacOSX.

I mean, imagine the world where to turn PC to Mac all you need is just to click "Hide"/press Cmd-H ;) And in no time, Windows disappears from your screen and Mac OS pops-up. I wish I were able to do that in office...... :|~

P.S. In fact, VirtualPC on Macs/PPC was used most often by professionals since it costed pretty much. And It was pretty fast - at simple things. And DirectX here I think is targeted again at pro market - CAD & 3D modeling. NOT gamers. I doubt very much that VMware would release any killer-feature at price of VMware Player. And professionals are able to swallow VMware price tag - if that can improve their efficiency even by little bit.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Feb 10th 2007 5:08PM]

[sarcasm] So, after - what? five years? of promises - they have finally implemented DirectX (and/or OpenGL) support for guest machine. The idea was floating heavily in 2000th. Later on was heavily rumored to be part of VirtualPC 7. (After M$ purchase any hope was lost - as if M$ would willingly/knowingly allow PC games on Macs.) And finally VMware realized that too - one can dumbly send DirectX/OpenGL commands from guest OS app to host OS driver - w/o any frigging thick/slow layers of emulations.

[LordPaul @ Feb 10th 2007 5:10PM]

B*llocks, it stripped my less than symbol so it makes no sense

what I wrote was

So instead of spending less than £1000 on a PC that does everything a mac does & plays games at the speed it's designed for you can spend more than £1000 on a Mac that does nothing different to a PC but can emulate a PC now (at the cost of the virtualisation software & windows)

[Leonard Nimrod @ Feb 10th 2007 8:26PM]

If you haven't heard, Apple uses Intel chips along it's entire product line. That means, it doesn't emulate anything that runs on windows when using VMWare, Parallels, ot Crossover... it virtualizes it.

[snafle @ Feb 10th 2007 5:13PM]

Yay flame war!

I'm running windows at the moment. I've got AVG free edition running, and that's it. I've not had any problems running like this for a good few years.

I like windows, once you cut out the bloat crap it's a fast, secure and stable os. Unlike OSX, where you can't actually cut out the crap. I don't want a shiny interface- I want a speedy os that allow me to quickly access programs and files. Which I can do on windows with the huge array of programs available.

I've got WMP11, dreamweaver and photoshop and incopy going, and it's still fast as greased shit. So don't roll out that old chestnut either.

[LordPaul @ Feb 10th 2007 5:14PM]

Bah, the one button thing is a cheap shot - I used an MS Keyboard & Mouse on my G5 & they worked fine, plus I liked the irony of it.

[Jason @ Feb 10th 2007 5:16PM]

When did all these Windows users post on an Apple blog? Talk about desperate and diluted. Sad, really.

How is it different, you spending hundreds or thousands on the latest graphics cards and such to play a game over getting a complete system that will run a generation back or so? Why knock innovation? This is a good thing for everyone in the long run.

[joel @ Feb 10th 2007 9:37PM]

All I can say is what I draw from personal experience. I used a PeeCee for years and years until switching to a mac in October. Would never, ever go back to that crappy Windows envirmonment, ever. Ever.

[LordPaul @ Feb 10th 2007 5:32PM]

I've worked with Macs & whilst they're ok & the interface makes me warm inside they simply don't do enough for me to warrant the extra expense in owning one over the customisation & personalisation that my PCs have always offered me.

The chestnut about stability is not apparent to me as I've had my PC on for about 6 months now without it crashing (I have rebooted it quite a lot for installations & stuff, but that doesn't count) & I use it for everything from music production to games - plus I use it as a media centre attached to my big telly for HD movies & twin tuner TV action. The problems I had with macs was that they didn't give me any indication of why they crashed & sometimes I had to do some serious prodding to get the things booted (& these were top spec G5s last year)

[LordPaul @ Feb 10th 2007 5:19PM]

Since when has Engadget been an Apple blog?

[RF @ Feb 10th 2007 5:26PM]

Why didn't they showcase more recent DX8 games, like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2? THPS4 is a far cry (lol, get it?) from being a technical showcase, even when it was new.

[matt byrne @ Feb 10th 2007 5:35PM]

Yeah, games run 'full speed' on that crappy video card that came with your Mac... Sorry folks, but you still can't game on that GMA950 or Radeon X1600 iMac



Er, MacPro users can utilise 512mb graphics cards if they want to with 16gb ram. Did anyone say 'Games PC'?

[Kwipper @ Feb 11th 2007 3:11AM]

Yes, but you forget one thing. Having ram is one thing, having a processor is another thing. But a graphics card is the main thing that matters in a computer when it comes to 3D accelerated games. It is the thing that matters more than ram and a processor.

Also the speed of a graphics card isn't rated by it's own video memory. If that is the case then a 512 MB GeForce 7300 GS should easily keep up with my 512MB GeForce 7950 GT graphics right?

Sorry, but that is incorrect. The correct answer would be a combination of the number of Pipelines & Clock\Core Mhz Speed on the graphics card. That is what gives the graphics card it's horsepower to render games at high detail and good frame-rates.

[Jason @ Feb 10th 2007 5:31PM]

@LordPaul - That was sarcasm, since everyone cries when Engadget posts anything Apple lately, even though they are making huge strides since switching to intel.

People who are blindly bashing Macs sound jut like the stupid Mac users who blindly bash PCs. It's ignorance.

[LJKelley @ Feb 10th 2007 5:35PM]

So what you are saying is that Mac users can play Windows Games? But they must buy the virtualisation software and legally required to install a legally purchased Full Version of Windows... So Microsoft Wins... Do you think M$ cares if you run their Windows natively or not? You still need Windows to play good games... so Mac still sucks on its own!!!

http://www.startblue.net

[David @ Feb 10th 2007 5:36PM]

My powerbook g4 has this graphics card

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

Is it any good? Good enough to run PC games?

[LukeA @ Feb 10th 2007 5:55PM]

Considering that you have a PowerPC Mac, you can't run this software (VMWare).

[Bman21212 @ Feb 10th 2007 10:35PM]

You might be able to play some mac ported games though. The ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 is a decent card for a laptop. If the game came out a couple years ago, you should be able to play it. Not the best card, but you should be able to play many "classic" shooter games, and others. You can play games like Battlefield 1942 (which I still play and love).

But dont bother with anything that came out recently. Your computer won't be good enough.

PS: If you cant quite play the game, put in another gig of ram. It only costs about $120 from crucial, and makes your computer run faster as a whole, and with games. I had a laptop that had a Nivida go 5200, with half a gig of ram. It was a little slow, and laggy with most games. I put in an extra gig to push it up to 1.5 gigs, and the computer was so much better. Crucial is very easy to use, and will tell you what part you need. :)

[Bluephoenix @ Feb 10th 2007 6:00PM]

@ Ihar `Philips` Filipau

go actually look up stuff before you start spewing shit, most CAD software is OpenGL based, not DirectX based. the main distinction between CAD software and games is the draw method. Thats the main reason for the distinction between the QuadroFX line and the Geforce line of graphics cards.

and the reason CAD software is almost always Windows based is because of the ability to upgrade the major hardware. try this; my two QuadroFX 5500's in SLI with FSAA, 8GB RAM, and twin Xeons vs your mac pro. Run a Solidworks or Solidedge model that is highly complex and compare the results.(the mac would freeze due to the load)

[Kevin Dixon @ Feb 10th 2007 6:12PM]

"Reasons why people still won't switch to OS X:
1) They just can't enough of the Start button.
2) Bill Gates gives them a woody.
3) Some people like watching their computer defrag and enjoy running anti-malware software.
4) They love the sound their PC makes when it reboots."

You forgot Macs cost 2x as much........

Until the price comes down Windows will RULE the PC land scape..

Macbook $1099
WIndows Notebook $500

Which will you buy?

[Leonard Nimrod @ Feb 10th 2007 8:14PM]

You are correct. The cheapest NEW Mac notebook is twice the price (if not more so) than the cheapest NEW Windows -based notebook.
However, your point fails to mention that you are not getting an Core 2 Duo processor with that low-end base model. You are getting a processor that is a several year old design that was never considered gast, even when it was new.

Compare equivalent specs and you'll ssee that Macs are not wildly expenisive and in many cases slightly cheaper than the WIndows counterpart.

[Jason @ Feb 10th 2007 6:36PM]

Could you people who are comparing PCs to Apples please back up your claims. Otherwise, it's all irrelevant.

Take the system shootout done with the Macbook and a similar Dell.

http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/laptop/2006/0516_lt1100.html

@Kevin - What does that $500 system have in comparison.

And why are people paying so much to play games? Do you care at all about other things a computer can do?

[Bman21212 @ Feb 10th 2007 9:24PM]

Take out the $79 anti virus for the mac, and get a Radion x1400 graphics card for the dell. Then the dell will have a clear advantage. The x1400, and even the x1300, and light years away from Intel integrated graphics.

And that is the great thing about dell. You dont have to chose between 1k or 1.8k. You can chose anything inbetween. Need more ram? Done. Bigger harddrive? If you have the cash, pick the size and speed. Different processor? Save cash and go small, or go for performance and get a 2.0 core2duo.

[Andir3.0 @ Feb 10th 2007 6:36PM]

If it's in VMWare, technically it should be able to run on Linux...right? There are no hardware restrictions on that. Besides, I thought it was stated in the Vista EULA that it is illegal to run Vista on an Emulated platform (thus, they could sue someone for this.)

[Vimal @ Feb 10th 2007 6:49PM]

There are mac gaming forums?????

[Matt @ Feb 10th 2007 7:59PM]

"what are you going to do all day now that your favorite phrase -- "Mac gaming is an oxymoron"

It is still using Windows to play those games :)
Microsoft aren't losing anything over people using Macs it shows that Apple can't be successful without Windows.

I run Windows Vista thats it and I can run any program I want natively, why do I need to buy and over priced Mac to run an operating system that I will have to buy again in a short time to play windows games.

[sheikhness @ Feb 13th 2007 10:53AM]

This is awesome - I mean bootcamp is ok but now I really need to drop my shitty Thinkpad so it dies already and somehow persuade my boss that I NEED a MacBook Pro. This way I will be getting sturdy built light-weight laptop that I can also use to get pwned in CounterStrike:Source even without having to reboot. Yippee!