Applications :: Gaming Through VirtualBox (Running XP)
Mar 31, 2009
I was wondering if it is possible to run a few old pc games in virtualbox. Old games, such as, Star Trek: Armada 2, Bridge Commander, and Elite Force. Would I be able to get the performance needed from this (I think the newest game is from 2003, maybe) or do i need to go boot camp?
I am getting ready to finally "make the switch" to Mac and I need a Virtualization solution to ease the transition for my wife and let me run my work environments as well. I have been considering VirtualBox [URL] which is free for personal use, as well as VMWare Fusion 3, and Parallels. The satisfaction rating seems to be lower with the Parallels users (maybe disgruntled on charging folks for 2 upgraded within 2 months of each other) so I have almost ruled it out, but I still need to decide.
The big thing here is that I need this software from day one to make sure my wife doesn't have to miss a beat during the transition. I'd rather not be reinstalling Windows _again_ in 2 weeks to switch solutions. Anybody have any experience with VirtualBox on Mac and can maybe share some of the shortcomings versus VMWare Fusion or Parallels? Is there good reason fork over the cash and go with Fusion or Parallels?
I had Parallels 5, to run the odd extra OS for giggles and sometimes practical reasons. At work they have VMWare for the odd XP program. Eventually, they both annoyed me with their bloated nature. I dunno about you guys but I downloaded VirtualBox, and I am very impressed with it to say it's free. With Parallels, running Windows XP with 1GB of ram, my fans would blow franticly. The same on VirtualBox, and everything is smooth, it is so lightweight, has all the features and supports OS's a lot more than Parallels and VMWare.
I've been trying to install Ubuntu 10.10 on VirtualBox. However, when I try, even in full screen, it only shows a part of the screen. I know how to change the res if I could access the menu, but I can't. Can someone help? BTW I can't finish the installation until res is better so the set up window is still in the middle.
The setup: VirtualBox (latest), Snow Leopard and Windows XP.
The situation: I installed VirtualBox, all seems fine. I then installed Windows XP. All seemed fine. I installed Gust Additions. Then I installed Safari. Then I went and downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. When it attempted to install, it would fail, and asks me to restart and try again. I went ahead and restarted. When the virtual machine restarted, it'd get all screwed up, squashed video and frozen. Then I'd get a dialog saying that the virtual machine disk image has a problem or some such, and claims that a likely cause is a problem with the harddrive. After I clicked OK, it beachball'd. I force-quit the program.
when I get my new MBP (when they release them *sigh*), I intend on doing some moderate gaming on it. Things like MW2, Starcraft, Sims 3, Battlefield BC2, and some others I can't think of right now.
My question is, if a game is available for both OSX and Windows, would it be better to get it for OSX, or Windows? I was wondering if I should have like all my games in the windows partition, or have ones that I can get for OSX separate.
I'm new to the forums. I'm using a 17" Macbook Pro, and recently I've thought about running Windows via Bootcamp to play Fallout 3. I have Fallout on X-Box, but I really want to download some mods, plus it would be awesome to play it on the go. So I guess my question is where would I start, and is it worth it.
I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, but I would like to know what software is better for gaming on a Mac. I have Parallel Desktop 5 but I noticed while playing the Orangebox I was getting some framerate issues.I heard a lot of good things about Crossover games and I was wondering if that would be better? or would bootcamp be just fine? Also my Macbook pro is the 2010 15'' 2.4ghz.
ive searched all over the internet for a working mac application that is free and that works... ive tried hamachix but it doesent seem to work, my friend cant find me when i host or vice versa...
i cant get the terminal installed apps to work either... im searching for one that is an actual app, doesent requere terminal... and works with cod4
I have a Unibody Macbook and was wondering which one would be a better choice to do occasional gaming. using Bootcamp since I have tried it before and didn't like the whole restart the computer after done playing the game.
I heard crossover is great for gaming but Parallels 5 came out recently so was wondering if it has any improvements.
I am a library grad student with OSX 10.4. Our class is working with OCLC's ContentDM where we are creating metadata for a digital libraries project. My problem is that I have a Mac, and need to run a Windows exe file. The first step is to "Install the CONTENTdm 4.2 JPEG2000 Acquisition Station" and this calls for the "InstallAcquisitionJP2.exe" file to launch the installer on my computer. I have already downloaded VB. My question is this: Being that I have VB, what is the next step for me to be able to download InstallAcquisitionJP2.exe? Or is this just not possible? I saw that some research libraries in Illinois are working on a similar project so I would like to know how to do this with a Mac and not a PC of course. Here is the url at their consortium website: [URL]
I just ordered the MBA and windows 7. There's some (but not a lot) of somewhat intensive programs I need to run in windows for school. Is there any noticeable difference between loading windows in bootcamp or virtualbox? My thinking is bootcamp would allocate more of the computers resources to windows. Am I wrong about this and theres no major difference?
I am wondering whether to install win7 via bootcamp or virtual box. My macmini has 2GB memory so if I do a virtualbox install the max I will allocate for win7 is 1GB. I will not be using win7 a lot, I am installing it because my univ gives it for free and just wanted to test it out and play with it. Also, one more problem, the MSDNAA download for win 7 is in EXE format. If I do decide to install as a VM using virtualbox how can I install the EXE, I might have to convert it into a ISO right?
I'm a MBA Rev. A user (first day 1.8/SSD). I recently upgraded the stock SSD with a Photofast 128GB model for more space. Both before the SSD upgrade, and more noticeably after, my Windows XP virtual machine seemed to run poorly: fequent "pauses" and generally really slowly. At that time I was using Fusion; I decided to give Parallels a try. Slightly lower RAM footprint, but still slow. I found that disabling the shared folder feature helped somewhat; adding the NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate registry key also helped somewhat.
Still frustrated, I tried Fusion 3; that didn't help. Then Parallels 5 came out, and I had missed the free upgrade cutoff by 3 weeks. Even more frustrated, I decided to try VirtualBox. Oh, my. It installs easily. It does everything I need. It runs smoothly (no pauses, good speed in the VM). It's FREE. Bonuses: the RAM footprint is even smaller; the hard drive container file seems smaller (even with exactly the same contents inside the VM). The only downside is a lack of "coherence" or "unity" mode, which I never liked anyway.
I am a rock-solid convert to VirtualBox, and highly recommend it over the commercial products for running a Windows XP virtual environment (I have not tried Windows 7, nor will I; with only 2GB of real RAM in an MBA I cannot imagine that will go over well).
I downloaded Win 7 ISO, because I thought I was supposed to download that instead of the other, to install on VirtualBox. With the ISO version I need a previous version of windows to upgrade from. Is there a way around this? I've read some things and tried it, but couldn't get it to work.
I'm looking to create a virtual machine on my i5 MBP because I need to run some specific Windows software (Tacx Training Software, I'm into cycling). Which one of the 3 virtual machine programs is better from a performance/stability perspective? Has anybody seen a comparison test yet? I understand that VirtualBox is free for personal use, is it really worth paying for the other two?
i have a macbook pro 13in with lion os. i also have windows 7 as a virtual machine ,my question is if is posible that my virtual machine WIN7 sees my mac partitions from mac
When I want to finish a session of using Vista in VirtualBox. If I "x" out the application, "it says "save in state" or something like that and "power off machine" is power off machine different than shutting down windows? What's best to do and what does what? I'm assuming also that I can't just close virtualbox and come back to it later without windows being shut down or affected?
I know the issue of what virtualization package is best on the mac has been debated endlessly, but the only thing I have been able to conclude is that some people have great experiences with each package and some people have horrible experiences with each package. I'm interested in some numbers and figure this place is a better forum for collecting this data than, say, the apple store.
I've set up an account for my kids to use and also have VirtualBox installed on my account.
The kids have an educational program that only runs under Windows and I would like to give them access to it but not to the rest of VB. Is there any way I can do this?
I've thought of perhaps creating a new VB disk just for them but I can't see how I could restrict them from then opening up other VB disks that I don't want to give them access to.
Any thoughts on how VirtualBox compares to the Fusion and Parallels versions? I think VirtualBox would be a nice free alternative if you are running Windows in Bootcamp.
I just finished putting up some Benchmarks of Windows 7 using the latest builds of Parallels, Fusion and VirtualBox with both x86 and x64 based images on various Macs. More results coming soon. [URL]
I had installed a windows partition through virtualbox, i tried many times to delete the partition but i didn't succeed. So i reinstalled the virtualbox to try through the media manager but appears this message:Â
windows (inaccessible)Â Runtime error opening '/Users/MonicaSolorio/VirtualBox VMs/Windows/Windows.vbox' for reading: -102(File not found.)./Users/vbox/tinderbox/4.3-mac-rel/src/VBox/Main/src-server/MachineImpl.cpp[731] (nsresult Machine::registeredInit()).Result Code:NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)Component:MachineInterface:IMachine {480cf695-2d8d-4256-9c7c-cce4184fa048}