Virtualized Gaming (Lengthy)

[JustCreepin']

First time poster, after having lurked on MR for many, many years. I've searched for the following, but haven't been able to come up a really good, clear, answer to my overall questions.

Hardware-wise, let's assume we're talking about a new, baseline, 15" MBP with 2.4 GHz Core i5, GeForce GT 330M, 4Gb of RAM (although I'd max this out ASAP - what's the current limit, 8 Gb?).

I absolutely do NOT want to consider Boot Camp (I know all about it and have weighed the pros/cons for myself) and suggestions to find Mac versions of any of the games wouldn't be too helpful, in part due to the incompatibility of lots of the Mods available.

I'll be forced to use 32-bit Windows XP Pro (with SP3) in the virtualized environment for work-related reasons and don't really want to take up HD space with multiple virtual machines - but I may consider it, depending on the case. First - what would be the ideal amount of RAM & CPU cores to allocate to the XP virtual machine (I'm thinking 1 core, 1 Gb of RAM).

That being said, I'd like to know anyone's experiences running the following games in virtual machines (Parallels or Fusion - and it would really help if you specify what you're using, i.e., Parallels or Fusion): Arcanum, Chessmaster XI - The Art of Learning, Freelancer, or Morrowind.

I'm already assuming other games I have: Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate I/II, Planescape Torment), Diablo 2, Fallout I/II, and other various (read OLD) games should be fine in the XP virtual machine - please correct my assumptions, if mistaken!

I appreciate any and all responses - Thanks!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

First time poster, after having lurked on MR for many, many years. I've searched for the following, but haven't been able to come up a really good, clear, answer to my overall questions.

Hardware-wise, let's assume we're talking about a new, baseline, 15" MBP with 2.4 GHz Core i5, GeForce GT 330M, 4Gb of RAM (although I'd max this out ASAP - what's the current limit, 8 Gb?).

I absolutely do NOT want to consider Boot Camp (I know all about it and have weighed the pros/cons for myself) and suggestions to find Mac versions of any of the games wouldn't be too helpful, in part due to the incompatibility of lots of the Mods available.

I'll be forced to use 32-bit Windows XP Pro (with SP3) in the virtualized environment for work-related reasons and don't really want to take up HD space with multiple virtual machines - but I may consider it, depending on the case. First - what would be the ideal amount of RAM & CPU cores to allocate to the XP virtual machine (I'm thinking 1 core, 1 Gb of RAM).

That being said, I'd like to know anyone's experiences running the following games in virtual machines (Parallels or Fusion - and it would really help if you specify what you're using, i.e., Parallels or Fusion): Arcanum, Chessmaster XI - The Art of Learning, Freelancer, or Morrowind.

I'm already assuming other games I have: Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate I/II, Planescape Torment), Diablo 2, Fallout I/II, and other various (read OLD) games should be fine in the XP virtual machine - please correct my assumptions, if mistaken!

I appreciate any and all responses - Thanks!

You are spot-on about the VM settings - 1 GB RAM and 1 CPU will work just fine for almost all Windows XP usage. That's what I used back when I ran a WinXP virtual machine with Parallels.

 

[balamw]

Have you considered Wine/Crossover for some of these games?

Many of your games seem to be listed as working fairly well under it, and you may actually get better performance by not carrying around a full VM.

B

 

[JustCreepin']

Have you considered Wine/Crossover for some of these games?

Actually, I hadn't thought about that! Kind of funny, seeing as I've used WINE extensively in the past during my forays into the Linux world. I've been spending a little while looking up my games on the Crossover/Codeweavers site and I'd much rather go that route than have to have a full VM. I may just be able to leave the Windows on another computer altogether for when I need to access my work (which is rare).

However, I'd still appreciate any further responses about successful (or not) virtualized gaming . I'm pretty much gonna pull the trigger on the next MBP update (regardless of what it is) and go from there.