Heavy virtualiation
 

after i save up the money (soon, too) i'm going to build my own computer, hopefully with a quad core 3 ghz processor, 4-8 gigs of ram, really high-end nvidia graphics card (haven't chosen yet). what i would like to do is set up a virtual machine running windows, probably vista because i'v never had any luck with xp when it comes to multicore and/or 64 bit prcessors. i would be using debian, more specifically sidux (because of speed, light-weightedness, etc) the big question is; would i be able to enter the windows virtual machine and play any commercial games the way i would under a native machine? with all the rocessing power avaliable, would an application like virtualbox reduce the performance so much that it would be impossible to run any games under windows? i've run windows xp under a 'normal' computer with virtualbox and it's not pretty. if i purchased a game like bioshock or quake wars, would virtual box reduce performance so much that plying games like that is out of the question? if it is, i assume dualbooting is more adquate, also reducing the need of a 3ghz quadcore processor. any ideas?

virtualization
 

as far as gaming is concerned you might also want to check out www.transgaming.com so you can run them under the linux side of things, although with that much juice i dont see much of a problem doing things either way

Regards
JKZfixme

VMs are not suited for gaming because they can't access the GPU directly, which is needed for fancy graphics.
So any game using the Dircet3D or OpenGL API will either not run, or suck.
You will either have to set up a Windows-partition, try to use Wine, stick to games that run natively under Linux, or play games that don't use much graphics, like Solitaire.
I'd recommend a Windows-Partition.

as i suspected... thanks for the info, i'm obviously not a virtualization expert, glad i decided to check it out before i went and paid through the nose for high-end equipment. duallcore seems more reasonable, probably try transgaming or cedega or other alternative, etc etc. if that doesn't wor out, i guess i will have to go with seperate partitions. the big reason for going virtual for me was the convinience but also being able to make a copy of the virualbox file and just revert back to it when windows started getting sluggish. one could simply do that every few months and take away some of the pain. thanks -
intuvati

Wurstbrot is incorrect in that you are unable to play main stream games under linux. I was able to fully remove windows partitions due to the implementation of cedega and it works quite well. I did run a test using xen and he is correct that gaming sucks under a virtual environment. So my conclusion is that cedega is the way to go , its a proprietary fork of Wine, which is designed specifically for running games written for Microsoft Windows under Linux. As such, its primary focus is implementing the DirectX API.


Regards
JKZfixme

As an afterthought you might also want to check out LinuX-Gamers Live distro wich has some awesome games and can give you an idea of what can run natively under linux

For gaming on Linux, the way to go is Wine and/or Cedega, like said above. Cedega costs (there's a version you don't have to pay for, but it doesn't come with "support" and I never got it working well personally), but on the other hand it ought to play your games better than plain Wine. However Wine plays some games too, even though it isn't directx-maniac.

The single/dual/quad/n-core question is more than just specs on paper; refer the other threads here for information on how separate single and multiple processors and "n-core" processors differ from each other in terms of performance and abilities. Not sure if there is one correct answer, but one thing is for sure, and that's that you can't just add up the MHz values when comparing processors.

And if you really are going to save (how do you do that, by the way -- living like dead in terms of food and warmth, maybe? :) just joking..) the bucks to be able to buy a PC you described, especially with a high-end nVidia graphics card (or any other brand for that matter), then consider this: very probably you'll get a decent computer for your daily needs and a shiny gaming console (PS3, XBox360, you name it) and a few games with the same amount of money. That means a machine that is designed for gaming (means smooth gaming, no driver or OS woes) and a machine that you can do your work on. So..what's the point in buying a crazy-sized PC for gaming if you can get two or three equally good gaming consoles for the same money, or a gaming console and a hdmi telly? :D I just wonder..because a "good", as in gaming-good, (in your case) nVidia card costs more than PS3, which is the most expensive gaming console on the market. Add the PC specs you said and you can buy a television too, large enough not to fit in trough your door.

Think about it.

Thanks for the additional info. I only checked out Wine and got none of my games to work properly. Good to hear there are other options, I will try cedega next time I get the itch to shoot something.