video performance

DBabo · 12-20-2010, 11:50 AM

I'm thinking of installing the VB on toshiba laptop Satelite L465d-s4037 with 4 gb of ram, # core Phenom and ATI Radeon HD 4250 video card. As a guest i want to put Win7.
the question i have is - what's the performance hit the video card takes in this setup?

thank you

adamk75 · 12-20-2010, 06:49 PM

VB supports both OpenGL and Direct3D acceleration (D3D is beta). Both are slow and barely usable in my experience. vmware, on the other hand, provides decent 3D acceleration via Direct3D (I don't believe OpenGL is supported in windows guests yet, but I could be wrong).

DBabo · 12-20-2010, 07:45 PM

Thank you Adam. I decided to go with linux as a guest @ this point.

jiml8 · 12-20-2010, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk75

VB supports both OpenGL and Direct3D acceleration (D3D is beta). Both are slow and barely usable in my experience. vmware, on the other hand, provides decent 3D acceleration via Direct3D (I don't believe OpenGL is supported in windows guests yet, but I could be wrong).

Does the Windows variant of glxgears (I don't have it here now, though I used to have a copy) use OpenGL? If it does, then VMware does support OpenGL because I have run that program in Win7 Pro virtualized in VMware Workstation and gotten decent performance. Not as good as native linux, but several hundred FPS.

edit:

The version for windows is called qtgears and can be obtained here. I infer from that web page that it uses OpenGL. This suggests that OpenGL IS supported by VMware.

Another edit. I am writing this post in an OpenSUSE 11.3 64 bit system running as a guest in VMware Workstation, with Mandriva 2010.1 32 bit host. I just ran glxgears in this VM and got a bit better than 700 fps, in a VM that is running a full-up KDE4 desktop.

The 32 bit host, also with a full-up KDE4 desktop, generated about 6,600 fps.

So, VMware supports OpenGL but the support is not optimum. IIRC my Win7 Pro VM (32 bit) also got somewhere around 600-700 fps on qtgears, but I lost that copy of qtgears when my Win7 VM got hosed and I replaced it with a backup that was dated before I downloaded qtgears to play with it.

adamk75 · 12-21-2010, 04:22 AM

The fact that qtgears runs at 600-700 fps does not suggest that vmware provides OpenGL acceleration. That could simply be software rendering.

EDIT:

Does qtgears have an option to display the GL renderer string?

Adam

jiml8 · 12-21-2010, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk75

The fact that qtgears runs at 600-700 fps does not suggest that vmware provides OpenGL acceleration. That could simply be software rendering.

Adam

Good point.

Running glxgears -info in this OpenSUSE VM reveals the following:

Code:

GL_MAX_VIEWPORT_DIMS=4096/4096
GL_RENDERER   = Software Rasterizer
GL_VERSION    = 1.4 (2.1 Mesa 7.8.2)
GL_VENDOR     = Mesa Project
GL_EXTENSIONS = GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow GL_ARB_imaging GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_shadow_ambient GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_logic_op GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_copy_texture GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_paletted_texture GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_polygon_offset GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_subtexture GL_EXT_texture GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_texture_rectangle GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_3DFX_texture_compression_FXT1 GL_APPLE_packed_pixels GL_ATI_draw_buffers GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_ATIX_texture_env_combine3 GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_INGR_blend_func_separate GL_MESA_pack_invert GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_depth_clamp GL_NV_fragment_program GL_NV_fragment_program_option GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_point_sprite GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_NV_vertex_program GL_NV_vertex_program1_1 GL_SGI_color_matrix GL_SGI_color_table GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_SGIX_shadow_ambient GL_SUN_multi_draw_arrays 

***
*** WARNING: Direct Rendering is NOT enabled
***

Also, the VMware site says this:

Quote:

Aero Glass — A new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) graphics driver has been developed for Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines. The WDDM driver can display the Windows Aero user interface, OpenGL 1.4, and Shader Model 3.0. For more information on the VMware recommended graphics hardware, see the VMware Workstation User's Manual.

and this:

Quote:

3D Graphics Improvements for Windows XP guests — OpenGL 2.1 and Shader Model 3.0 support is now available for Windows XP virtual machines. The XPDM (SVGAII) graphics driver works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. However, only Windows XP virtual machines install the XPDM graphics driver by default. To switch graphics drivers in the guest operating system, see How to Switch Between SVGAII and WDDM Drivers.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws7/do...notes_ws7.html