Microsoft Virtual PC

you can only install MS virtusl PC on a  microsoft OS only, then you can use Virtual PC to run any instance of any OS, not sure about Mac OS but all the others will work fine like OS2, linux, win95, win 3.11, win 98, win NT, win 2k, win xp and win 2k3


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regarding games, this will be a matter of luck really, the only way to confirm is to try and install the game under that instance of OS under virtual PC

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I was wondering if at least in theory Virtual PC supports directx and 3d graphics hardware access.

e.g.

Host OS = WinXP
Virtual PC OS = Win95

Under Windows 95 I attempt to play a game that accesses 3d graphics hardware via directx - or for that matter - accessing the 3d graphics hardware directly

The reason I ask is a friend of mine is using vmware and he was wondering if Virtual PC has the same limitation as vmware - that is - no 3d graphics in the instance OS

i use virtual pc on my machine but never tried it for games, the bottom line is regarding the display card, virtual pc uses a generic driver, that is dependant on the display driver installed by the host OS, so if the host OS display card needs directX, the virtual PC os will need it as well, how the call will be interpeted between the 2 OS, again it is a matter of luck really

for example, my laptop has an internal modem on com 3

this modem could be found under the virtual OS, even by trying a bit of configuration, with no joy, however if i put an externam modem on com1, it will be detected by the virtual os as generic modem, same with the network cards, will be simulated as generic cards

but all these generic hardware ultimatly are the original hardware so you may try first installing directX on the virtual OS then install the game and see


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correction
this modem could be found under the virtual OS,

should be

this modem could NOT  be found under the virtual OS

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interesting what you say about generic drivers ... does this work like:

host os
gfx driver = nvidia driver

virtual pc os
gfx driver = generic


then any access to the driver by an application running in the virtual pc os is actually rerouted to the driver instance back in the host os?

or is it simply a generic driver instanced in the virtual pc os that has no nvidia specific capabilities - for example is only capable of doing 2d vga operations

absolutly should be the case, because when i installed virtual PC, i did not need to install any display, network, modem drivers

what is interesting that i have 2 netcards, one in builtin the laptop, the other is wireless, and under the host OS youo specify which one you want it to be available to the virtual OS, and i activated both, and both appeared as generic under the virtual os and the virtual os had no problem sending/receiving  network traffic through both


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however i had issues with browsing the internet tp play yahoo pool, ie the interent browsing was ok under the wireless but when i try to play pool, i had issues but i believe it is a routing issue and not a driver issue, i gad no problems with the non wirelss card though


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pretty impressive ... I'm looking forward to having a play with it.

I will leave the question open for a day pending any input on the Mac OS X side.

I'd also be interested in any technical material that details how Virtual PC works under the hood.

I have installed DirectX in a Virtual PC
No problem
Then installed an old game for my kid.
It never runs.
Maybe you need a lot of memory to run it.
My answer will be NO. You can't.
Even old DOS games ?
Give it a try.