So why does virtual box 3d support suck so much?

[togbabe]

So, I don’t get it. After 15 years of advocating VMWare as the only serious ‘virtual solution,’ I finally bit the bullet and switched to Oracle Virtual box. In the early days, VMWare really was a market leader and virtual box just wasn’t there. Now it easily stacks up against VMWare in every way…. Except 3d support. Why is that? If you turn on 3d support in VMWare, you don’t even notice that it is on. Direct X overlays work perfectly and chrome doesn’t flicker like it is possessed. Turn 3d support on in Virtual box and you REALLY notice how rubbish it is. Browsers flicker and go on, and no Direct x overlay even works, so forget even running a simple 2d video overlay. The forum is filled with complaints of how sucky it is. I don’t get why this is. The two technologies seem very on pa, so why haven’t the Virtual Box programming community been able to crack this one in such a long time; when VMWare has done such a good job of it? I am not really even having a go at anybody. It just perplexes me.

[michaln]

For a very general complaint, you'll obviously not get a detailed answer. If you have a specific problem, you should report it and it will probably get fixed at some point. Vague complaints will achieve absolutely nothing.

The first problem is that there's no such thing as "3D". There are lots of 3D APIs, libraries, and applications, lots of different drivers, different hardware. Most have bugs. The path from the 3D app running in a VM to the hardware is pretty long, and there are frankly far too many variables to guarantee 100% functionality across all supported host and guest operating systems. Maybe at some point 3D will stabilize in the industry as much as, say, networking or USB has, but that hasn't happened yet.

The second problem is that in most cases, 3D isn't worth much to VirtualBox customers (and it's worth much less to non-paying users). Which should have been a pretty obvious conclusion. VMware was/is clearly in a different situation.

[togbabe]

Fair points. But why can VMWare get it so right, while Virtual Box... not so much? You gave technical reason why it is hard. Sure. But it is no harder than what VMWare have already done.

[Perryg]

As Big Dan T. said it's all about the money boys!

[togbabe]

Does virtual box get no financial support from its mega-rich owner Oracle?

[socratis]

Yes they do, that's how the whole thing works. And since they are paying, they set the direction that the developers should focus. 3D is not one of the focus points. In other products the people that are paying are interested in 3D. Does it make sense now?

You can have better support for 3D in VirtualBox if you are willing to pay $$$$$ for one or more developers to improve it. Or you can contribute the source code that does it. Or you can simply accept the situation. Your choice.

[mpack]

This is still all generalities. I'm not seeing the testable specifics that Michaln asked for (and I would like to see as well).

I'm also amused by the novel idea that a business can be its own customer. As a revenue raiser that business model seems to have flaws.

[togbabe]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I just think it is a real shame. Because Virtual Box absolutely stacks up against the commercial offering. If not for this ‘direct-X compatibility issue.’ Seems such a shame for such a brilliant product. Even simple things that require just overlays crash on DirectX initialization. Regarding the financial points that were made her. Very valid. The only choice for me is to go back to VMWare and pay my $150.00 upgrade price. I think a big company like Oracle could have funded the fixing of this issue. This has been around for a long time without a descent solution. If Virtual Box were to fix such glaring issues and charge a far more reasonable price than VMWare, I and – I would guess – many others would be happy to pay. At $150.00 just for an upgrade, VMWare is pricing itself out of the ‘home user market.’ Virtual Box could fill the void.

[togbabe]

This is still all generalities. I'm not seeing the testable specifics that Michaln asked for (and I would like to see as well).

I'm also amused by the novel idea that a business can be its own customer. As a revenue raiser that business model seems to have flaws.

Seriously? Just install the supprot package and run chrome and do a bit of browsing. You'll soon see it flickering and going on. Install and run almost any application that runs a direct-x overlay. You'll soon see it crash. It doesn't take much to re-produce.

[michaln]

I think a big company like Oracle could have funded the fixing of this issue.

Yes... but that's just not how it works at all. What gets fixed is problems reported by customers and problems reported by internal users. Everything else gets thrown on a "low priority" todo list which is quite long and, well, low priority. Those things usually get fixed too, but it can take years.

Of course the source code for 3D support is all available so if it's so trivial to fix, surely someone can provide a patch?