virtualbox.org

Hey guys, here is some info about my VM:
VirtualBox 6.1.30(with 6.1.0 GA, due to some or all newer versions encountering errors when installing)
Host: Windows 10
Guest: Windows Vista 32-bit
3D acceleration on(with 256MB 'V'RAM)
GA installed in safe mode

If you need more info to help fix this issue, please let me know!

So on to the issue at hand - I've installed some software just to test if the graphics system is working properly. One is an old benchmark I've been using(successfully, in other VMs) to test performance('Video Card Stability Test' at 'freestonegroup'). The other is an older game(but not super old) - Sacred 2, which also doesn't play well with anything newer than Windows 7(even host systems). I've played Sacred 2 with success in VMware Workstation Player 16(the free one) and in an older VirtualBox version(6.0.something) with XP 32-bit as the guest I have occasionally been able to get past the loading, and intro videos into the game's menu(which also has active graphics). I've also been able to do a full benchmark run with that stability test, again, on other VM software/versions(with 0 issues), with approx. 80 FPS on the VMware player, and ~180 FPS on the older XP VirtualBox VM. For some reason v6.1.x of VirtualBox combined with Vista x86 guest just doesn't want to play nice. It's a real shame too, because the benchmark results are the highest so far from my testing(a whopping 280 - playing Sacred 2 with this kind of performance would be great). Does anyone know what's going on, or know of a way to debug what has caused the reboots? I looked in event viewer but it just says something like 'the previous system shutdown was unexpected'. Any help would be much appreciated!

In Virtualbox 6.1, 3D acceleration was removed for VM OS's Vista and earlier. 7 and later still have it. So despite having 3D enabled in the VM's settings you really don't have 3D acceleration. Unless you can try 7, you'd have to go back to 6.0 and use the old-school VboxVGA video card (Not VboxSVGA note the S.) for XP and Vista. Install the 6.0 Guest Additions too.

Also, benchmarking apps don't produce reliable results in a VM, according to the forum gurus, because the timers are all virtual.

Virtualbox is not designed well for games. If another virtualizer runs better than Virtualbox for a game, it may be better to use it.

scottgus1 wrote:In Virtualbox 6.1, 3D acceleration was removed for VM OS's Vista and earlier. 7 and later still have it. So despite having 3D enabled in the VM's settings you really don't have 3D acceleration. Unless you can try 7, you'd have to go back to 6.0 and use the old-school VboxVGA video card (Not VboxSVGA note the S.) for XP and Vista. Install the 6.0 Guest Additions too.

Also, benchmarking apps don't produce reliable results in a VM, according to the forum gurus, because the timers are all virtual.

Virtualbox is not designed well for games. If another virtualizer runs better than Virtualbox for a game, it may be better to use it.

Hey, first of all thanks for your reply.

I thought 3D acceleration was only removed for XP, starting with 6.1. In 6.1, with XP as guest, I was unable to really access any 3D software. The video RAM was also limited to 128 no matter what. In 6.1 with Vista as guest however, I was able to select 256 video RAM + it was even listed as 384 when hovering over the display icon in the bottom right(not sure if this was with or without GA - maybe both). 3D acceleration was working as well, or rather very rarely, for very short periods of time(think seconds).

You say benchmarks are not reliable but in the end frames are frames and I get extremely consistent results across VMs using that software(and likely others, if I tried). It's a good indicator of performance, and likely a good comparison between VM software.

Why are older guest OSes no longer supported for 3D acceleration? One of the big reasons people use VM software is to be able to emulate old OSes as close to original as possible, in order for the older software to work there without issue, which it often doesn't, if the acceleration is broken.

I think by now I have tried all XP and Vista options in VB 6.0 and 6.1 but I cannot seem to get Sacred 2 working, even though it works just fine(albeit with near-unplayable performance) in VMware Player 16(free version). I mean there has to be a way to get it working, you'd think. Closest I've gotten is XP guest using 6.0... managed to get into the menu(sometimes) but no matter what, in no time it will give one of those send error report dialogues(...has stopped working). The game doesn't play well at all in anything except for XP and Vista so using 7 or above is out of the question(the game constantly crashes then, even on host systems).

Koozwad wrote: I thought 3D acceleration was only removed for XP

Nope. You only think that because not many users care about Vista, so most of the discussion around here has been about the effect on XP.

The precise situation is that 3D acceleration has been removed from the VBoxVGA feature. 3D acceleration remains in the VBoxSVGA chipset, but VirtualBox only provides WDDM drivers for that, making those drivers only suitable for Windows 7 and later. XP and Vista use the older WDM driver technology. It's not impossible that VirtualBox will one day provide WDM drivers for VBoxSVGA, but it's probably unlikely given market realities, i.e. because paying customers have moved on from XP, at least for use cases involving 3D graphics.

mpack wrote:

Koozwad wrote: I thought 3D acceleration was only removed for XP

Nope. You only think that because not many users care about Vista, so most of the discussion around here has been about the effect on XP.

The precise situation is that 3D acceleration has been removed from the VBoxVGA feature. 3D acceleration remains in the VBoxSVGA chipset, but VirtualBox only provides WDDM drivers for that, making those drivers only suitable for Windows 7 and later. XP and Vista use the older WDM driver technology. It's not impossible that VirtualBox will one day provide WDM drivers for VBoxSVGA, but it's probably unlikely given market realities, i.e. because paying customers have moved on from XP, at least for use cases involving 3D graphics.

That's a real shame. Was it due to a security issue or something? I don't plan to use the VM online anyway.

Koozwad wrote: That's a real shame. Was it due to a security issue or something?

Apparantly yes, plus the source code was by all accounts pretty hard to maintain. Which is why it had not been updated for years.

mpack wrote:

Koozwad wrote: That's a real shame. Was it due to a security issue or something?

Apparantly yes, plus the source code was by all accounts pretty hard to maintain. Which is why it had not been updated for years.

Could I still find a stable version somewhere(regardless of how insecure it is)? Strictly for offline use.

Koozwad wrote:Could I still find a stable version somewhere

Yes. Please try 6.0 and earlier, using the old-school VboxVGA card (no S). https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds Don't forget to match up the Extension Pack version, too, and probably the Guest Additions inside the VM since 3D acceleration is being used.