virtualbox.org

I redownloaded GA on my XP guest with the guest in safe mode, but the sound is still stuttering a bit and the sound quality is still subpar. Maybe it's because the guest is still on SP2. I should go find SP3. Unfortunately, the official download for SP3 from the Microsoft website is no longer available, so I might need help searching for the update. And yes, I upgraded my Nvidia Geforce driver, but I still see supR3HardenedErrors.

SP3 might help. I'd guess that many folks program for SP3. I don't know what else to suggest. Shut down the guest again, start it, demonstrate the behavior, then shut it down again, and post the first log file. Maybe someone else will know what to do.

BTW, forum mods like you to reply with the PostReply button, not the Quote button.

scottgus1 wrote:BTW, forum mods like you to reply with the PostReply button, not the Quote button.

Nah, that's just my pet peeve...

Okay, I installed SP3 onto the vm, and then did the steps to do the log. The sound was okay, no changes in quality, but it was fine. When I opened The Sims, though, it suddenly did not have any sound, and the ingame cursor wouldn't show.
Also, after running the game, the vm didn't have any sound, period.
Also, the FMV intro is still a white square, this time with no sound.

An update:
I had VMware workstation installed (the latest version, but with the free player app and a free trial of the pro app since I don't have enough money ), and I exported this Virtualbox VM to VMware and put it in the VMware player (and installed VMware tools) to see how it works. The game works pretty well on VMware and the sounds are great! However, the guest os has no internet connection in VMware and it detects an ethernet adapter that it cannot install the drivers for since there is nowhere to get those drivers from. This might be an issue incase I want to install mods or additional tools for the game onto this VM. Compare that to the version of this exact VM on Virtualbox where the internet works flawlessly but I'm having this problem where I can't get the game to run properly.
Why can't I have the best of both worlds with good sound quality and good running of games ALONG with good internet connection on this guest VM?

ChrisNonyminus wrote:Why can't I have the best of both worlds with good sound quality and good running of games ALONG with good internet connection on this guest VM?

Because there is only so much you will get for free.

@ ChrisNonyminus,

You've only mentioned having a sound problem with one specific Game (Sims 1), which was renowned for having sound problems on a 'full metal' installation in its day, so I have no idea whether your 'problem' extends to other less demanding games/applications.

Just Google "Sims 1 sound problems" and you will be faced with about 6,300,000 results dating back to the original release of the game and I didn't see any mention at all of Virtualisation when scanning the first few pages. Additionally, anti-piracy measures used by the game publisher(s) meant that the original CD had to be present in the CD Drive to play the game. This security approach frequently produced stuttering sound & video on games and other applications with some hardware configurations because of the time continuously taken to temporarily load data to memory/hard disc during game play so....

ChrisNonyminus wrote:Why can't I have the best of both worlds with good sound quality and good running of games ALONG with good internet connection on this guest VM?

I might also add that the bold italicized underlined part has always been not the best in at least a Virtualbox guest, based on forum reports, due to the high video and other demands placed on the guest system by the game, as well as the fact that the development strategy for Virtualbox is not being driven by folks who want to play games.

Oracle's development on free Virtualbox comes from developments on Oracle's pay-for virtualization system which is derived from Virtualbox. The license to begin getting developer support on Virtualbox starts at $6100 (that's $61 per license, 100 license minimum). The developers have said they have their hands over-full handling Oracle's customers' development needs. Most of those rich paying Oracle customers probably aren't trying to play games. Folks who want to play games in a virtualized environment will probably pony up the couple hundred quid for VMware first before they'd pay the 6 G's for Oracle's developer-supported offering based on free Virtualbox to just begin to try to get support for playing games. So free Virtualbox doesn't do so well playing games.

The other two desired activities are solid in Virtualbox if the host is solid.

Aw man, that's a bummer. Oh well; I'm sorry to have annoyed you guys if I did, I didn't mean to.

No annoyances at all. It's all a learning process. As a rough suggestion, you might to better with games on an old OS if you run a dual boot with another hard disk and the host BIOS's boot selector function key.

erdeslawe wrote:@ ChrisNonyminus,

You've only mentioned having a sound problem with one specific Game (Sims 1), which was renowned for having sound problems on a 'full metal' installation in its day, so I have no idea whether your 'problem' extends to other less demanding games/applications.

Just Google "Sims 1 sound problems" and you will be faced with about 6,300,000 results dating back to the original release of the game and I didn't see any mention at all of Virtualisation when scanning the first few pages. Additionally, anti-piracy measures used by the game publisher(s) meant that the original CD had to be present in the CD Drive to play the game. This security approach frequently produced stuttering sound & video on games and other applications with some hardware configurations because of the time continuously taken to temporarily load data to memory/hard disc during game play so....

I see that there are some errors others are having on Windows 7 or so with missing sounds in The Sims 1; it's not exactly the same sound problem I've been having with running the game in a VM, but I will factor that in. I'm trying to install Zoo Tycoon in the Virtualbox VM currently, another old game that doesn't run on Windows 10, to see if it's either the VM or TS1 (although my Zoo Tycoon CD has seen better days ) that's the issue.

scottgus1 wrote:No annoyances at all. It's all a learning process. As a rough suggestion, you might to better with games on an old OS if you run a dual boot with another hard disk and the host BIOS's boot selector function key.

Oof. that does indeed sound like a rough suggestion. I'm too mindful of my own built in hard disk (and I also don't have another hard disk with me) to do a dual boot, and I don't exactly think it would be best to run a physical version of Windows XP alongside Windows 10 in the same computer. Since Windows XP is old and prone to viruses, something might go awry.

EDIT: On an unrelated note, I see 5.1.26 has come out. Since this probably includes the fixes in the development releases of 5.1.25, do you think this might solve the issue?

Ok, I installed Zoo Tycoon onto the Virtualbox version of my VM, and although the installer was nagging about how it couldn't install certain files due to the CD being old, the game installed successfully and runs well. Plus, the FMV intros run, unlike The Sims 1!
Granted, this is a simpler game (despite coming out 1 year after The Sims 1) with no 3D modeled characters (and of course, Virtualbox was not made to play computer games), but it's cool to see that the game runs perfectly on Virtualbox, sound and everything! So I guess it's just an issue with running The Sims 1 on a virtual machine in Virtualbox?