Virtual Machine Question

[Jmac]

*I wasn't sure if I should necro Sly's topic or just start a new one*

So I have Windows 7 Home Premium installed as my primary OS and have Windows XP Professional as my guest OS. I saw in Sly's guide that installing two different OS's will cause lag, which I receive when I run two clients of Stick-Online. I now believe that I need to install Windows 7 as my guest OS instead of XP.

The question is, which version of Windows 7 do I need to install to my VM to reduce the lag. Like I said, I have Win7 Home Premium x64 Bit, so what should I do?

Also, the specs I assigned my VM shouldn't be the problem, I assigned it 1GB of RAM and I have a dual-core processor, yet I receive 20-25 fps on average.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Seifer]

Depending on what your trying to accomplish with this VM, Sandboxie may be a much better answer for you.

[Scotty]

The question pertaining to "lag" isn't so much dependent on which is your primary OS, and which is your guest OS, but rather, how much resources you are dedicating to your guest OS.  While I'm confident you're aware, I feel as though I should explain anyways, so I apologize if I am insulting your intelligence.  When you create a virtual machine, you are taking hardware resources away from your primary OS, and dedicating them to your guest OS.  Virtual Machines (using VirtualBox presumably) are forgiving in that when you shut them down, the resources they use are returned into the pool, and are available for your primary OS (minus hard drive space).  Want to give your guest OS 1GB of RAM?  While that VM is running, your primary OS is down a GB of memory, same with CPU's.

What OS you install to your guest VM can best be determined by what resources you have to allocate to it.  Common sense would dictate that an OS that is 10+ years old is going to require less resources than one that is 3 years old.  Keep in mind though, that you need to take away resources from one to give to another.  So in this case, does your machine meet both the requirements of Windows 7 AND Windows XP cumulatively?

[Jmac]

Depending on what your trying to accomplish with this VM, Sandboxie may be a much better answer for you.

I'm attempting to use the VM to run 2 clients of Stick-Online, so Sandboxie won't help me with that.

So in this case, does your machine meet both the requirements of Windows 7 AND Windows XP cumulatively?

Indeed it does, and my primary OS does not receive any lag whatsoever, it's only on the VM that I receive it. I believe that the copy of XP I have installed may not have updated drivers, so I'm going to try updating them and it may or may not fix it. As to your earlier statement, I understand that my primary OS is losing out on it's RAM, but the 3GB's remaining should be sufficient enough to support 1 program right?

Anyways, thanks for the replies, I'll attempt to update my drivers on the VM and post my results as soon as I can.

[Seifer]

Depending on what your trying to accomplish with this VM, Sandboxie may be a much better answer for you.

I'm attempting to use the VM to run 2 clients of Stick-Online, so Sandboxie won't help me with that.

That's exactly what Sandboxie will help you with. Unless for some reason Sandboxie and SO don't get along.. But I can't see why not.

[ARTgames]

Depending on what your trying to accomplish with this VM, Sandboxie may be a much better answer for you.

I'm attempting to use the VM to run 2 clients of Stick-Online, so Sandboxie won't help me with that.

That's exactly what Sandboxie will help you with. Unless for some reason Sandboxie and SO don't get along.. But I can't see why not.

It depends how at what level it sandboxes. And in a way a VM is a vary low level one. As far as I know Sandboxie is a disk level sandbox tool. And that Stick Online it's self detects other Stick Online other ways. Well maybe not really directly detect but the error message you get is that the other stick online is using network resources that it needs. So you would need something to get around that. A VM offers that but I don't know about something that is less intensive.

As from what I think I remember reading is Meiun could make it so you could be online on two SOs but dedicated not to.

[Scotty]

I understand that my primary OS is losing out on it's RAM, but the 3GB's remaining should be sufficient enough to support 1 program right?

3GB should be plenty for a few programs, you shouldn't notice much degraded performance so long as you don't push it.  Heck, if you're looking to solely run this VM for the purpose of having 2 SO clients, and don't mind not running anything other than another SO client on your primary, you may even be able to give it 2GB of memory, splitting your memory evenly across both platforms (1GB is the minimum for Windows 7, two is comfortable).  It may take some trial and error, so try screwing around, and see if allocating more/less has much of an improvement.

[Seifer]

I've tried this before by the way. I was easily able to run what one would think are much more memory intensive programs, but SO was just insanely laggy to the point of unplayability.

[sly 3 4 me]

Interesting, assuming you have two physical cores, at least one dedicated for the two OS's it should be fine. Have you tried disabling the theme on the VM partition? When I used it on my secondary computer it showed a bit of improvement while using it with Windows 7 to be around 28-30 FPS constantly with the VM. The drivers situation you mentioned is for simplicity sake with the two identical OS to be run. It uses a modified video driver, and I assume that it's easier to cope with the compatibility if you run two of the same OS/version. Not quite sure if that is the case, as I never tampered or researched into it any further. Which VMware program are you using, the one I wrote the topic on? Does the lag diminish or become worse if you resize the window while the game is connected? My client always lagged on the second VM while it was loading and having the buttons float into place for the Stick Online client before being able to log in, yet was fine after I logged in.