Using VMWare Fusion for playing games

Hi all and I hope you can help.
I have a recent 17" MBP with 2GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo and I am trying to get some decent game software running on it. To do this I have installed VMWare Fusion, XP Pro and Crysis.
My problem is, I can get the game to run but it is VERY choppy and unplayable.
I have tried various virtual settings, including using 1 and 2 processors, 512mb to 1.5gb RAM but never getting it to run properly.
I am not trying to run it full screen or anywhere near high settings and have allowed the game to scan the hardware to find it's optimal settings and still no luck.
I know Crysis is quite a heavy load but with the hardware in an MBP it should be able to run it without many problems.
Am I being too optimistic trying to run Crysis or are there a set of parameters that are optimised for doing this?

VMWare will also allow you to virtualize a boot camp partition.
The problem with virtualization and gaming is that, while you get direct CPU access and protected memory access, you do not get video access - so there is absolutely no video acceleration, it's all emulated or translated by the virtualizer.
You'll see a very minor CPU hit on anything that just using processor power or takes a lot of data (so long as you have enough physical RAM, and have enough RAM allocated to the virtual machine, to prevent disk swapping), but anything that needs video acceleration will suffer tremendously if it's virtualized.
In general, anything more than Solitare or Minesweeper, and you will want to use Bootcamp if there is no Mac OS X native version of the game (hooray for Blizzard, and all you other mac-native developers). I know the latest versions of VMWare and Parrallels all say they have new DirectX support, and Crossover has a version out just for gaming, but you'll disappoint yourself if you think these will do much more than just show the splash screen and a slide show for most games.
The good news is more game companies are starting to take Mac OS X seriously, and technologies such as Cider are helping developers port their code easier. But it's a long road, and the Macintosh has notoriously been spotty for gaming.

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The Mac side works fine but now the VMWare won't even open windows. After restarting it did an automatic StartUp Repair but after another reboot, it was just a black screen.

Have you rebooted the Mac. Give that a try.
If that doesn't work you could reinstall Fusion but if Fusion opens and you can get to the Library windows of Fusion I think your VM OS is toast.
I make a habbit of copying the VM to another internal, yes I have 2 internal drives in my MBP, and to an external drive. I do this about once a week. That way if the Mac screws something up I have a backup I can use to overwrite the one that does not work correctly.
Good Luck. Hope you get it working.

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Hi-
Minimum system requirements for Halo are 800mhz processor, 256mb RAM, and 32mb Graphics card.
Recommended system is 1ghz processor, 512mb RAM, and 64mb Graphics card.
Your G4 Dual 450 would be about equivalent to a 733mhz single processor G4 QuickSilver. With the 1.31 gb of RAM that you have and a 128 mb ATI 9800 Graphics card, the game MAY be reasonably playable, but no guarantees.
For any gaming, the only card of choice for the G4 is the ATI Radeon 9800.
For any serious gaming, and considering most games require 800mhz or better, a dual processor 1.2ghz, or better, or a 1.6mhz or better, single processor upgrade would be necessary to see any real performance in the games.
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Folks,
I recently purchased a new Macbook Pro laptop computer to use for demos and testing with Oracle RAC. I am using VMWare Fusion for Mac OS X to setup new VM machines with Oracle 11g.
Thus far, I can setup single instance Oracle 11g database fine with OEL 5 (32 bit OS) as the guest OS. The problem that I keep running into due to the limitation with VMWare Fusion product is that I am not able to edit the VMWare network settings to allow multiple VM machines to communicate with each other. The second main issue that I currently face is that VMWare Fusion does not allow you to setup shared disks which are a requirement to install and configure an Oracle RAC environment. I came to the realization that after searching forums online that
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Hi,
I'm facing the same issue.. If your issue is fixed..could you please let me know?
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Which Part of windows 7 should I use for Playing games.

I have heard that Windows 7 Home Premium is best For playing games
can you tell me which one should I install in my MacBook Pro
& Please give me the link For it...

I don't think one version is better than the others for games, but you can take a look at comparison chart.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/14422-compare-windows-7-editions.html

VMware Fusion for Windows XP

Hello MacBook Community,
I recently bought a MacBook Pro (the one for $1199 with I think the 250G harddrive) after being a PC all of my life. I just finished my senior year of high school, so I will be going to college and find more uses for the MacBook once I get there, but in the meantime I want to play games. Yes, I know that is a problem and that is why I asked around and found out that I could use windows on the boot camp. I partitioned my MacBook for 36G of windows XP and took all of the necessary steps. When I tried installing the first game, everything went well, but when I tried actually playing it, it said that my 3d hardware was insufficient and that my directX wasn't good enough. I gave up with that game and installed another and got it installed and loaded it up and when it got to the load screen it force closed with no explanation.
Someone suggested that I try the VMware Fusion for WIndows XP, so I installed it and got better general XP results, but got the exact same results for the games. I downloaded the latest Direct3d and installed it and still nothing.
What do you think is the problem?
What do you suggest that I do?
How can I fix this?
Much thanks.

Taking Applications that are inherently single-threaded and running them on multiple processors is a Classic unsolved problem in Computer Science. This means that Applications will only speed up when they are Hand-coded to run speedily on multiple processors. Although the latest version of Photoshop is Finally seeing this treatment, many more mundane Applications will never be done this way.
As long as it remains so (which is likely to be permanently) MegaHertz (processor speed) matters, and once you have a handful of processors MegaHertz matters a lot more than number of processors.
Your list of prospective Mac Pros does not include the Mac you should be considering first, the 6-core 3.33 GHz Westmere, available as a build-to-order option of the four-core mac Pros. It gives you the fastest clock speed of any, and its Hyper-Threading give you 12 effective processing units.
The premium price of an eight-core or 12-core is so large that you could buy another complete Mac Pro for the same price, and use them separately or as a compute-farm.
If you are handy, larger DIMMs (8GB each) are available from reputable third party memory suppliers, and they stand by their correct operation in your Mac with one caveat: They do not play nice with other sizes mixed in. So if you are contemplating large memory size, choose 8GB DIMMs from the start.
Three DIMMs is optimum, but studies are showing that the penalty for running with two DIMMs or four DIMMs is under 5 percent in real-world Applications. So starting with two 8GB DIMMS seems like a good way to go.
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I just planned to install windows 7 on my MBP Mid-2012 using VMware Fusion,so i am bit panic about viruses and malware's affecting through vmware,is there any way to avoid from this??

i just planned to install windows 7 on my MBP Mid-2012 using VMware Fusion,so i am bit panic about viruses and malware's affecting through vmware,is there any way to avoid from this??

usamasheikh wrote:
virus protection in vmware or on my running OS X 10.8.2??plz help me out
First, you can install Microsoft's Security Essentials in the Win 7 VM and keep it up-to-date. Second, you can turn off Sharing in Fusion's System Settings to keep the VM environment separate from your Mac. Third, you can look into Sophos Anti-Virus http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-ed ition/download.aspx for the Mac host.

Shut down issue on 27" iMac running Windows XP using VMWare Fusion 3

I'm running Windows XP on a 27" iMac using VMWare Fusion 3. When I try to shut down the Mac system without using Windows, a dark (not black) screen covers the screen from top to bottom and presents me with a screen, stating in multiple languages that I must press the power button for 5 seconds and then restart the Mac. Then the iMac will close normally.
However, if I run both the Mac system and Windows, and then close Windows, VMFWare Fusion 3, followed by the Mac system, the iMac shouts down normally.
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I run XP under Fusion 3 and have not seen this issue. What you are getting is a Kernel Panic. There should be more information in your console logs about the reason.
Here is some info on KPs to help you.
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html
Goodluck.

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I have a 160GB Hard Drive in my MBP and use VMWare Fusion and had a 60GB Virtual Machine running Windows XP. Deleted the Virtual Machine and CANNOT find the 60GB space I desperately need! Anybody out there with a similar problem? Help!

Thanks - Of Course the first thing I checked and did.
Disc Utility reads as follows:
Capacity : 159.18 GB (159,182,127,104 Bytes)
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Available : 11.47 GB (11,472,896,000 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : Yes Used : 147.71 GB (147,709,231,104 Bytes)
Number of Folders : 139,540 Number of Files : 511,832
Activity Monitor(Disc Usage) shows something quite interesting. Mac HD and Ramanan (Main User) - My hard drive is only 160GB! Would the retired engineer gentleman please note as well. Many thanks. Rams

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Aubry,
why don't you send your sequences straight to Compressor first, encode your movies as MPEG 2 and AC3 audio and import all assets in DVD studio PRO?
G.

I use VMware Fusion, will it still work if I upgrade to Lion

I use VMware Fusion to use Quicken in Windows. Just want to be sure before doing the upgrade to Lion that it will still work? Thanks in advance.

You have to check with VMFusion, but my advice is to wait a few more months so the bugs are completely worked out if your very dependent upon things working.
I run Fusion myself.
http://communities.vmware.com/index.jspa

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The CPU and GPU generate a lot of heat when you are playing graphic intensive games.
Remove the casing/sleeve if possible.

Using Pro/E on a Mac using VMWare Fusion or BootCamp

Hi
I have a MacBook Pro:
Processor:2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3
And recently for uni I have had to find a way to get Pro Engineer, a CAD program, running on my Mac. My solution was to buy VMWare Fusion and instal Windows 7 on my Mac so I could then run the CAD program. Once I got that done windows was running well however once I got Pro Engineer installed it was incredibly slow and pretty much unusable.
My question is has anyone got any experience with running this program on a similar machine and can help me solve this problem so I can run the program? Should I use bootcamp instead of VMWare? Would it make a difference?
Thanks

Yes, I would definitely recommend setting up BootCamp for this - it's relatively painless. (It can create a new partition in the unused space on your OS X disk without erasing the disk.) The BootCamp Assistant has detailed instructions on how to go about setting up a partition and installing Windows on it, but the gist of it is that you have the BootCamp Assistant create a partition for you, then you boot from your Windows install disc and install Windows on that partition. When you've booted into Windows for the first time, pop in your OS 10.6 install disc, and it will install Apple's hardware drivers and utilities for Windows. If you got 10.6 shortly after it came out, the drivers will be version 3.0 for Windows Vista - you'll need to download version BootCamp 3.1 from the Apple support site to ensure full support for Windows 7. (If you have a newer copy of 10.6, it might have the new drivers already - I don't know, as I have an older one.)
I would, however, also recommend keeping VMWare Fusion (assuming you've already paid for it). Once Windows is set up in BootCamp, you can go into Fusion and create a virtual machine that's mapped to it (so you can also use your BootCamp installation as a virtual machine in your Mac if you don't need the full performance of booting into it natively). It should be fairly obvious how to do that - it will probably prompt you automatically. The virtualization also allows for as many different machines with as many OS's as you want - I'm running every version of Windows I've ever had in Parallels, plus a number of free OS's I'm trying out (BSD, Linux, Solaris). In short, it's a good thing to have.

I no longer want to use vmware fusion to run my windows session, can I use boot camp to launch my vmware windows install or do I have to start again with a brand new installation?

Hi,
I would like to know if I'm able to use my current VMWare windows installation through Boot Camp, I don't want to use fusion anymore but I'm hoping there's a way to set up boot camp and not have to re-install windows again, if anyone could let me know that would be great

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Yes as with Windows 7 if you used a Upgrade Win 7 disc it won't WANT To Activate and to get around it you do another install of Win 7 over the top of the original Win 7 install and it make it look like you are Upgrading and allows you to use an Upgrade key.
MS really screwed up with Win 8. There really isn't any FULL VERSION Windows 8 install DVDs. They are all Upgrade DVDs no matter how much you pay for it. So to do a Clean install, on real hardware or in a Virtual Machine, you have to jump through some hoops.
mclarenman500 wrote:
oh ok. thanks for clarifying that for me

Using VMWare Fusion for playing games

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