virtualbox.org

hello everyone and a good day. i installed virtualbox on my linux, so i could use the windows for playing when the linux is running.
now the problem is the virtualbox that installed on the linux can't see the windows partition for some reason. i don't want taking free space from the linux home partition,because i already have installed windows xp. all i want to do is use the windows xp as virtual machine.
how can i fix that problem and start using the windows through a virtual machine?

From what I can gather you currently have a dual-boot system, that is Linux and Windows installed on a disk, and both bootable?

I can also gather that you wish to start your Windows-installation within VirtualBox? With you so far?:)

First off, that is not how VirtualBox works.
The idea is that you create a virtual-harddrive(a file on the host-system, in your case Linux) within VirtualBox, that you use to install an operatingsystem on. VirtualBox supplies the virtual operatingsystem with system resources by using its method of virtuallization.

To do what you want, a good start would be to somehow make an image of your physical Windows-partition, and then somehow make it so VirtualBox can use it as a virtual harddrive.

I do not know how to do that, or if it can be done

An other thing would be to remove your physical Windows-partition(for space), and re-install Windows in VirtualBox as a virtual operatingsystem.

One thing though: I know that the new version (2.1.2) has support for letting guest-operatingsystem use 3d-accelleration, however I do not know exactly what that means,

I guess a minimum requirment is that the host-os(Linux in your case) has correct drivers for your gfx-card(as the graphics-card does identify itself to the guest-os as some VirtualBox supplied name and uses a VB supplied driver), as said, I do not know how this works, or what level of 3d-performance you can excpect, or if it is suitable to play games by this method...

slanbarn wrote:I guess a minimum requirment is that the host-os(Linux in your case) has correct drivers for your gfx-card(as the graphics-card does identify itself to the guest-os as some VirtualBox supplied name and uses a VB supplied driver), as said, I do not know how this works, or what level of 3d-performance you can excpect, or if it is suitable to play games by this method...

A comment on this: 3D acceleration in guest OS (Windows only ATM) works only for applications that use OpenGL for 3D graphics. DirectX (which is used by most if not all games) is not accelerated (yet).
I did a short test using well known OpenGL demo app glxgears. You can find windows port (it's called qtgears) on the 'net. The performance under guest OS is approximately 5-10% lower than performance on host OS using exactly the same *gears window size in both cases.

metodk wrote:

slanbarn wrote:I guess a minimum requirment is that the host-os(Linux in your case) has correct drivers for your gfx-card(as the graphics-card does identify itself to the guest-os as some VirtualBox supplied name and uses a VB supplied driver), as said, I do not know how this works, or what level of 3d-performance you can excpect, or if it is suitable to play games by this method...

A comment on this: 3D acceleration in guest OS (Windows only ATM) works only for applications that use OpenGL for 3D graphics. DirectX (which is used by most if not all games) is not accelerated (yet).
I did a short test using well known OpenGL demo app glxgears. You can find windows port (it's called qtgears) on the 'net. The performance under guest OS is approximately 5-10% lower than performance on host OS using exactly the same *gears window size in both cases.

Cool!
I did some quick openGL-banchmark thing, didnt even run it through, but the things it draw on the screen looked smooth...

However, on the only OpenGL question, you could play some old fun id games, or unreal-based games? They use OpenGL, or is that only the Linux-version of the game, maybe it uses direcx in a windows-environment?

This is very OT, but I will post my results in a simmilar test that previous poster did with glxgears:

Linux host system 'glxgears'
48785 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9745.659 FPS
50553 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10110.587 FPS
50583 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10115.138 FPS
52374 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10468.263 FPS
51494 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10285.491 FPS
51316 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10263.153 FPS
53365 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10671.109 FPS
53456 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10691.120 FPS
52850 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10569.909 FPS
54472 frames in 5.0 seconds = 10882.464 FPS
49285 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9855.437 FPS

WindowsXP guest system 'qt-gears'
8787 frames in 5 seconds = 1757 FPS
10491 frames in 5 seconds = 2098 FPS
10524 frames in 5 seconds = 2104 FPS
10527 frames in 5 seconds = 2105 FPS
10394 frames in 5 seconds = 2078 FPS
10377 frames in 5 seconds = 2075 FPS
10196 frames in 5 seconds = 2039 FPS
10719 frames in 5 seconds = 2143 FPS
10289 frames in 5 seconds = 2057 FPS
10176 frames in 5 seconds = 2035 FPS

Default window-size for both. The question is how it would handle a fullscreen game...

System:
AMD Phenom(tm) 9850 Quad-Core, GeForece 9800GT with 180.22 drivers from nvidia. VirtualBox 2.1.2 guest-additions installed.

oh ok then we have serious problem. the hard drive of the linux is full. every three days i get 30gb so his always full. so i can't installed the windows on the linux partition, the partition is full most of the time.
the windows that now installed is sitting on another hard drive, is there any pack i can add to the virtual box so he will see the installed partition windows or as slanbarn said, i will be have to removed the partition of the windows i now got now and reinstalled him on the hard drive the windows is sitting on him now but through the virtual box?

waiting for you answer.

You can run your physical Windows install in a VM the way you want to. See the sticky thread in the Windows Guests forum. It describes nicely what you need to do to get it working.