Elite Dangerous on VMWare (or other Virtual Machine) with Linux Host?

clinton

C
I installed Windows 10 technical preview on a VMWare box but unfortunately VMWare Player only seems to support DirectX9.

Has anyone got Elite Dangerous working on a VM on a Linux Host? I don't mind buying a copy of Windows 10 when it's released but I really don't want to have to dual boot because it's a pain.

DirectX seems to be the major sticking point. I think ED needs DirectX10 but the VMWare 3D driver only supports DirectX9. I don't really want a messy solution like a passthrough because I'll have to buy a second video card.

I suspect there's no solution to this but I thought I'd ask because I'd imagine others would have the same question.

Also, does the Mac Version of Elite Dangerous use DirectX10 or have they ported it to OpenGL? If it's in OpenGL, could it be ported back to Windows except for the OpenGL bits? A Windows OpenGL version might be all Linux users need, as many might already have Virtual Machines set up.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Have you tried Wine? Recent versions are supposed to support DX11.

Mac Elite: Dangerous uses OGL. I wouldn't expect them to bother working on a Windows OGL renderer option only to support the tiny portion of people who want to run the game in a VM that doesn't support IOMMU.
 
Last edited:

SnowGhost

S
The Windows version needs DirectX11 and directX10 capable hardware.

But running it in a VM is likely to just suck. From poor USB passthrough setup, to bad sound options, to the obvious of poor (or non existent) graphics performance. Dual booting might be a PITA, but it's going to be better than trying to get it running in a virtual machine.
 

clinton

C
Morbad said:
Have you tried Wine? Recent versions are supposed to support DX11.
Click to expand...

Wine fails horribly before even getting to a DirectX issue. I think it's beyond help, at least for the moment.

Morbad said:
Mac Elite: Dangerous uses OGL. I wouldn't expect them to bother working on a Windows OGL renderer option only to support the tiny portion of people who want to run the game in a VM that doesn't support IOMMU.
Click to expand...

I can't imagine it would be too much work. Just rollback the non-openGL changes for the Mac port. It could be an unsupported Windows version, but it may help those who want to run it in a virtual machine. Although if they've already done an openGL version, my hope is a Linux port isn't far off, though they haven't announced anything so perhaps it still is.

I guess the option now is to perhaps run MacOSX in a VMWare. Is there a trial of MacOSX available?
 

Nonya

Banned
Nonya
Since ED requires DirectX which in turn requires direct access to the video card hardware itself, you can't really run it in a VM.
 

clinton

C
SnowGhost said:
The Windows version needs DirectX11 and directX10 capable hardware.

But running it in a VM is likely to just suck. From poor USB passthrough setup, to bad sound options, to the obvious of poor (or non existent) graphics performance. Dual booting might be a PITA, but it's going to be better than trying to get it running in a virtual machine.
Click to expand...

Yeah, fair enough, I just did an OpenGL benchmark in the Windows VM and Linux. And the OpenGL performance is horrific. Oh well, have to wait for a Linux version.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Nonya said:
Since ED requires DirectX which in turn requires direct access to the video card hardware itself, you can't really run it in a VM.
Click to expand...

My VMs can directly access my GPUs via VT-d (Intel's branding of I/O MMU).

Indeed direct access to hardware is what distinguishes virtualization from emulation. VMware Workstation runs on a normal OS host and has to emulate/translate a few pieces of hardware, but if you are using a bare metal hypervisor (VMware VSphere/ESX, Xen, etc) on a platform with the right virtualization support, all the guests can have direct access to virtually everything.
 
Last edited:

Labanden

Labanden
You could try Windows to Go, run windows from a USB device.

When plugged in and the PC rebooted the local drive is bypassed and windows boots from the USB drive.
 

Samosa

Samosa
Morbad said:
My VMs can directly access my GPUs via VT-d (Intel's branding of I/O MMU).

Indeed direct access to hardware is what distinguishes virtualization from emulation. VMware Workstation runs on a normal OS host and has to emulate/translate a few pieces of hardware, but if you are using a bare metal hypervisor (VMware VSphere/ESX, Xen, etc) on a platform with the right virtualization support, all the guests can have direct access to virtually everything.
Click to expand...

Found the VCP!
 

clinton

C
Morbad said:
My VMs can directly access my GPUs via VT-d (Intel's branding of I/O MMU).

Indeed direct access to hardware is what distinguishes virtualization from emulation. VMware Workstation runs on a normal OS host and has to emulate/translate a few pieces of hardware, but if you are using a bare metal hypervisor (VMware VSphere/ESX, Xen, etc) on a platform with the right virtualization support, all the guests can have direct access to virtually everything.
Click to expand...

Can I run the virtual machine in a window? Or does it need it's own dedicated video card?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom