VMWare video hints at full DirectX virtualization in OS X
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted February 10th 2007 4:01PM
posted February 10th 2007 4:01PM
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]
Oddly enough, I don't think I've had a crash on my Windows XP SP2 platform for nearly a year or so.
I get an eMac at the computer lab the other and Excel crashed on me twice in 15 minutes.
/Just sayin...
I guess my new response would be "there's no such thing as a mac anymore" :P
The real goal should be getting OS X running stable on a PC platform instead of the other way around. OS X emulation is horribly slow at the moment, but since the Intel switch you know it will only be a matter of time before better drivers and hacks will be made (esp. considering OS X's *nix codebase).
Still, for the time being I'd dig any type of Mac to experience OS X as long as it could use "Boot Camp" (I've never even once touched a Mac, but I've only been around the pile [literally had 5 or 6, I think he stole it from his old job along with a Dell laptop] of G3 iMacs that once lived at a friends apt in NYC).
If I won a tax-free quad (well, 2x dual-core Xeon Woodcrest... which I guess can legitimately can be considered a quad unit unlike calling the P4 HT CPU I'm using now dual-core) Mac Pro all decked out (which would probably cost around $20k) I would surely accept it with glee and happily use it for years... although the power bill would probably increase a few hundred dollars each year so it wouldn't be totally free =p.
Also Clovertown CPUs would be better and you'd get true quad-core usage... but if it was free I wouldn't complain... much =).
- Tony R.
Fact: this thread is about games
Fact: this thread has some of the most inane comments I have ever seen on Engadgets
Fact pow pow bang bang your all dead.
grow up. if the best you can do with your pc is play games, well you deserve windows and windows deserves you.
keep smiling
waddo
...are there any virtualization products that run OS X under Windows? Because I don't know of any.
What's that say?
WHO CARES?!!?!?! It's a f'ing computer. Some people prefer Macs, some peopel prefer PC's.. whoooooo cares! You guys are all retards for even sustaining a thread this long, and I'm one for even taking time to read it.
You guys need to come out of yours parents basements and worry about things that actually matter, like why that hot girl you like would rather bang a mountain lion than you.
And maybe worry about why I have so many typos in my last post, you can do that too! ;)
Yeah...... you pc lovers are all a bunch of asses. "Oh billy boy let me suck your......." as if I had to say it. Stop fooling yourselves, you all want a mac your just to cheap to buy one. Don't worry I will forgive your jealousy. Have fun with that trashy pc that you always have to have anti-virus software running on and that blotted thing you call an OS..... what do you call it win-blows? Yeah have fun with your over priced game machine! I will be laughing as I use my Mac that runs both my favorite OS "X" and when I need to that pice of crap windows. Chew on that for a while.......
That's what it comes down to for all you PC people....... the price of the computer. Admit it your all cheap, you don't want to pay money for anything, you are the same cheap people that refuse to pay for software and continue to pirate music off of P2P networks. WOW..... I would be real proud of that! Why don't you all just say " hey, I just didn't want to pay a lot for a computer" and spare us all the bull you spread about how your machine is so much better, just to make yourselves feel good about it. Face it a Mac is no different from the machine you are using and in may aspects is way better. I would just like to hear a PC user admit the truth for once. Look, it isn't your fault you couldn't afford a better computer...... and yeah I am a smug Mac user and I am proud of it!
"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?"
Well the first thing I will do is check the benchmarks between the gaming performance on a PC, and the one using VMWare. I will make sure that both machines have equal video cards, ram, and processor. Then see which one of the two comes out on top. That will be my deciding factor. However, if the mac can play Direct X 9.0c games on a resolution of 2560x1600 resolution (30 inch monitor equvilant) at a decent playable frame-rate. (A steady 60 frames per second) then I'll switch to a Mac.
You know dozx, all you Mac people should really try and get on the same page. One minute one of you is vehemently arguing that Macs aren't really more expensive, and the next minute one of you is crowing about how you are so rich you don't have to care about how you spend your money.
The issue isn't price; the issue is value. You can spend anywhere from a few hundred dollars, to tens of thousands of dollars on a PC. It just comes down to what you need it to do. The difference between a Mac and a PC, is that for the PC you can shop with hundreds of vendors and make sure that no matter how much you spend, you are getting the best value, because of all the competition. With a Mac, you have exactly one vendor, and exactly no competition, so you pay whatever they feel like charging you, no matter how bad a value it is. If you think that spending your money with no concern for how much value you are getting makes you special, and better than all those 'cheap' people, then you are wrong. Wasting money doesn't mean you are rich, it means you are stupid.
Am I the only one that saw "the future: vaporware rendering" thing at the end of the youtube video?? wtf is that supposed to mean?
I wonder if the same principles could be applied to a Linux app to do the same thing? It would be sweet to get yellow dog running directX and maybe give my ps3 something to do!
OMG! Are you guys still arguing about this stuff? WHOOOOOOOOO CAARREEEEEEEES?!?!?! You guys are all complete losers, seriously there is more to life than the specs of your computer. You people need to get out more!! UGH........
Even though i hate Windoze i rin it, but how anout this option, use windoze, and run mac WITHIN windoze emulated!!! The Intel supported os can run withion Windoze easily, that way u get the beauty of DirectX the whole way through DUH, lol
I like Mac's, but this still does nothing to stop the Mac gaming is an oxymoron because it's still not gaming on a Mac.
It's still gaming on Windows, which happens to be virtualized on a Mac.
Also, as an earlier person pointed out--virtualization still has an overhead, and DirectX 9 is still not enough for certain games (Halo 2 on the PC and Crysis for instance will both require DirectX 10). Of course, since I gave up serious PC gaming in favor of consoles a year ago, this is all kind of a moot point for me anyway.
Just remember, this underpowered gaming capability won't get pc users to come to the mac side, its getting mac users to come to the windows side. There is just about 0 reasons for a pc user to emulate anything on a mac, but there are many reasons for mac users to have to emulate windows.
It seems to me that Apple have finally tuned-in to the fact that Mac users want to play cutting-edge games (duh!). So, although current Apple gfx hardware is ok-to-good, it's not great, but it will most likely get much better with the next revision of their hardware.
The fact that VMWare see the Mac as a market big enough to support their development efforts spreaks volumes. I would personally stay on the Mac and take a 5% performance hit for gaming, 'just' to have an OS that's nice to use too.
If you're serious about gaming on a PC, you'd probably buy a £2000+ Voodoo, Alienware or Dell system, when a high end Mac can actually compete for the same kind of money.
Why buy a supercar, then choose DOS to run the systems?
Last I checked Aero Glass does not run on DX9, it runs on DX10. So by saying "Aero" interface they really only mean the "Vista Basic" theme, which it falls back to sometimes when a program does something funny. (To try, install CCCP and run a video in Media Player Classic-- I believe ffdshow by default does something that makes it back down to Vista Basic theme from Glass).
That said, running Windows XP right now with hardware acceleration in a guest OS virtual machine is a coup all by itself.
I should also note that "Mac gaming" would still be technically non-existant, as all you are doing is Windows gaming on a Mac.