[Bug: Unconfirmed] MA beta 3 performance in VMWare Fusion

[Jsqr]

I realize that MA3 isn't being developed specifically, or perhaps even with any focus at all, for virtualized Windows environments, but I want to post this for whatever it's worth.

MA3 b3 runs just fine on WinXP in a virtual environment on iMac 24. Its performance, color, behavior, collision detection, etc. are as good as they are on my Vista native machine and WinXP in a Bootcamp partition on the iMac -
with one exception: the bubble stream is totally absent. No ghost images, no hint of bubbles, no nothing.

VMWare Fusion uses its own driver, which probably doesn't have anywhere near the features of a real graphics card. The MA3 statistics screen displays a fps range of about 110-112 fps on VMWare SVGA II (the graphics card emulator that runs on a real NVIDIA card.

By comparison, MA3 B3 on a virtual WinXP under Parallels on the same iMac shows plenty of bubbles but everything runs slowly and most of the shapes are black silhouettes.

Hope this info is of some use to you somewhere along the line.

- and my apologies if I've posted this in the wrong forum. I expect a moderator can relocate the thread if necessary.

Jsqr

[Jim Sachs]

Jsqr - This Forum is as good as any for your comments.

You are right about not developing for virtual environments - I don't have a Mac and don't plan to get one. There are so many driver problems even with native Windows machines, that I'm not looking to add another layer of complexity. Once the major bugs are out and a couple more features added, Jim O'Connor's brilliant programmers will start doing the Mac conversion. This is not trivial, since it involves switching everything from DirectX to OpenGL, so it may take a while.

[PigsOnTheWing]

Originally posted by Jsqr:

the bubble stream is totally absent.  

If you run MA3 in Windowed Mode, or press 'F' to cycle to Windowed Mode, the bubble column magically appears. Strange behavior on the part of VMware Fusion, eh? Perhaps there is something that needs to be fixed on their end.

[Jsqr]

Jim, thanks for your reply. I agree with your position - virtualized Windows on any machine currently represents such a small fraction of the users interested in MA3 that devoting effort to MA3 for such environments now (or any time) is a misallocation of your effort.

Pigsonthewing: thanks for your helpful tip - it works for my system nicely, and that's about all I need for occasional use/recreational viewing of MA3. You're right - the virtual graphics driver supplied by VMWare Fusion isn't (in its current state) adequate for several graphics-intensive apps.

BTW - I apologize for mislabeling the beta version as beta 3. I meant to write beta 2. 10,000 apologies.

Best wishes to you both.

Jsqr

[321liftoff]

Back in late November, I tried the latest Beta on VMware Fusion and got trails behind the fish when they weren't in front of the coral (a problem others have reported, which seems to be linked to incompatible drivers).

Between now and then much has changed (updates to XP, upgrade to Fusion, and of course updates to MA3) to where it works beautifully! Don't know which it was, but happy that it works!

Thanks Jim for your hard work. Fusion is a great compromise until the Mac version comes out.

BTW, Parallels crashes when it tries to run MA3 Beta9 (haven't tried earlier versions)