Virtual Machine improvement

[Maykxor]

Alright, here's my dilemma. I'm trying to play some of my pc games through Steam via a Virtual windows software on my mac (yes, I know lolmac, I hate it too but it wasn't my choice to get it and I know that if I want to do gaming, a true PC would be best. Long story short, I played lots of video games in my childhood, parents would probably say TOO much. When college came they insisted on buying me a mac so that I couldn't play video games and would focus more on school and since it was their money not mine, and I had none of my own, I had no say in the matter. And it would have worked but I found Minecraft and played that anyway XD but thats besides the point.)
Anyway, I'm currently using VMware Fusion 5 on a macbook, (specs below) and am trying to get steam to run games in the VM. I can install and open the games just fine but actually playing them is a total pain. FPS drops and sound is warbly and intermittent. It literally would take me 5 minutes to walk from one side of the room to the other and by then I would probably be shot and killed if it wasn't for being in the tutorial. Anybody know of a way to up performance and speed using some kind of VM ware? I know it's difficult and it would just be best to buy a PC and I just may have to do that but funds don't allow for something that expensive at the moment.

Mac Specs:
Macbook 2010 OS X
Version 10.8.2
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB
More at
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP584

VMware fusion 5
Compatible with Intel Macs containing a Core 2 Duo, Xeon, i3, i5 or i7 processor
2GB of RAM (4GB recommended)
750MB free disk space for VMWare Fusion and at least 5GB for each virtual machine
Operating system installation media for virtual machines
OS Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6.7; OS X 10.7.4 or OS X 10.8 recommended
Media Type: CD
More at
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/i ... ec_ws.html

Current VMware fusion settings:
Running Windows XP
2 processor core
1432 Mb allotted memory (max)
40 Gb Disk size (not max)
SCSI Bus type (Can't seem to change to IDE, not that I would want to but it wont let me change it)


However, note that actually running the windows xp is just fine. The speed and what not all works like a normal computer. The only time the software slows down is when actually in the game itself. This leads me to believe that it's the macbook itself that doesn't have the capabilities to run those types of games rather than something to change in the VMware. But I thought I'd at least ask to see if anybody else had some ideas.

[Tjololo12]

I ran into this issue doing the same thing on linux.

The problem occurs with *how* vmware interperets the virtual hardware. VMware does not see your nvidia, it sees a virtual graphical device (probably just listed as VGA device), which is handled by vmware itself. It communicates with the graphics card, yes, but not in the same way.

I was hideously unsuccessful, but give this a looksie. Increasing your video ram might help.

To be honest, I think your best bet would be to set up bootcamp. It will give you the full windows performance, and you wouldn't have to worry about A) sharing your resources with a bloated VM and B) trying to make games work with the virtualized hardware.

[Tehbeard]

What tjolololhool said, bootcamp would be best. Unfortunatly, depending on your version and such (i don't keep up with lolmac) bootcamp will only support windows 7. That said when 8 comes out 7 should see a price drop.

[Maykxor]

I thought as much. Tried the Ram whatever file edit and didn't seem to change anything. And rather than waste more money. I figured I'm going to go ahead and buy a real computer.