Re: [BLUG] VMWare Workstation and full virtualization

Ya know, I'm pretty surprised noone has made a cross-platform OpenGL
engine that reads the game files from the CD.

I mean, I don't know the nitty gritties, but the entire source code of
Civ IV is available, and most of it's Python and XML, and the core is
C++.

My guess is that it must be more difficult than I think to translate
from code written for DirectX to OpenGL.

Yeah, let me know how it works out for you, I wouldn't mind trading in
a Windows partition for a Windows VM if it can do decent DirectXing.

Incidentally, there's a way to drop Tango icons and a Human theme onto
Windows XP to make it look as Ubuntish as possible, if you have to use
it ;-).

Simón

On 9/2/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
> Civ IV is exactly the game I want to run. I'll let you know if I end up
> trying Wine or testing the experimental DirectX acceleration in VMWare
> Workstation.

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Re: [BLUG] VMWare Workstation and full virtualization

On Sun, Sep 02, 2007 at 04:02:02PM GMT, Shing-Shong Shei [shei@cs.indiana.edu] said the following:
> Mark ,
>
> Thanks for the information. I have some questions though:
>
> 1) Does the P4 you use support VT?

No. AFAIK, none of the P4s support VT. The newer Pentium D chips have
VT support.

> 2) Are the VMs you created multi-CPU running SMP OS? If not,
> any chance you can repeat your experiment using SMP (by
> keeping the total number of virtual CPUs the same? I.e.,
> if it was 8 1-CPU VMs, then use 4 2-CPU VMs). I assume
> that your POVRay benchmarks utilize pthreads?

When I did the testing, it was with on a single Pentium 4 with
hyperthreading turned off. So it should have been a good base test.
Plus, the test I did wasn't quite up to standards, it was only so I
could make conclusions for my own use. If I get a chance, I'll do the
test with multiple CPUs.

I've heard that using an SMP kernel is actually faster even if you
only have 1 CPU. Kinda strange.

> 3) Have you actually performed the bench marks on multi-core?
> Intel? AMD? Specifically I am interested in the data when
> running multi VMs on multi-core to see when the shared bus
> on Intel will max out. My guess is that AMD should fare
> better.

Yeah, that would be interesting. I only really have my workstation at
home to do that test with though.

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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Re: [BLUG] VMWare Workstation and full virtualization

Simón Ruiz wrote:
> YMMV, as mine did. I got it installed, seemingly smoothly, but then it
> simply wouldn't run.
>
> Civilization IV and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are the two things keeping
> a Windows XP partition un-nuked at Casa D'Simón.
>

Civ IV is exactly the game I want to run. I'll let you know if I end up
trying Wine or testing the experimental DirectX acceleration in VMWare
Workstation.

> Simón
>
> On 9/1/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
>> Oh well, the game that I wanted to run (Civ IV) does seem to work in Wine:
>>
>> http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/06/10/special-civilization-iv-playable-on-linux/
>
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--
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
http://www.netmusician.org
joe@netmusician.org
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Re: [BLUG] VMWare Workstation and full virtualization

YMMV, as mine did. I got it installed, seemingly smoothly, but then it
simply wouldn't run.

Civilization IV and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are the two things keeping
a Windows XP partition un-nuked at Casa D'Simón.

Simón

On 9/1/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
> Oh well, the game that I wanted to run (Civ IV) does seem to work in Wine:
>
> http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/06/10/special-civilization-iv-playable-on-linux/

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Re: [BLUG] VMWare Workstation and full virtualization

Mark ,

Thanks for the information. I have some questions though:

1) Does the P4 you use support VT?
2) Are the VMs you created multi-CPU running SMP OS? If not,
any chance you can repeat your experiment using SMP (by
keeping the total number of virtual CPUs the same? I.e.,
if it was 8 1-CPU VMs, then use 4 2-CPU VMs). I assume
that your POVRay benchmarks utilize pthreads?
3) Have you actually performed the bench marks on multi-core?
Intel? AMD? Specifically I am interested in the data when
running multi VMs on multi-core to see when the shared bus
on Intel will max out. My guess is that AMD should fare
better.

As para-virt vs full-virt, you might want to Google for the
following paper done by VMware guys:

"A Comparison of Software and Hardware Techniques for x86
Virtualization" by Keith Adams and Ole Agesen, ASPLOS'06

Regards,
Shing-Shong

>
> Mostly true but not completely. para-virt is faster overall but full
> virt is *supposed* to be faster for CPU processing. I put stars around
> supposed because I've never gotten full virt to work and so I haven't
> done my own testing. I've had to go on what other people say.
>
> When I did my testing of paravirtualization prior to the IU LinuxFest
> presentation I did, I found that Xen domUs where about 5% slower than
> the native CPU speed. Which honestly is pretty fast compared to other
> emulators and things like VMWare. I did this test by creating a special
> VM that all it did was render the standard benchmarking frame in POVRay
> (3d raytracer) and compare it with how long it took in a native non-Xen
> kernel. Then I'd copy this VM and run X amount of them at the same time
> to test the results with Xen. This was done on a single Pentium 4
> 2.4GHz with 2GB of RAM. Each VM only needed something like 96MB so I was
> able to run around 16 at once.
>
> Interestingly, the CPU was most efficient when I ran 8 VMs at once. If
> I ran 4, 6, 10 or 12 it was less efficient. This is in terms of work done in
> the same amount of time.
>
> I've used this 8 VM results as the policy at Suso for how many VMs we
> allow per core on our Xen service. 8 per core seems to be a good
> balance between getting good usage out of the CPU and not making
> everybodys VM seem slow. Then of course multiple cores help when there
> are deviations from the norm.
>
> I've been pretty impressed with the VMs responsiveness even under
> significant load on the host machine or other VMs. They did a good job
> with the scheduler.
>
> One thing interesting is that the consultant from RH that was at Cook
> last month, went to go work for Dreamworks Animation after he helped us
> and he said he was going to setup a renderfarm for them that utilized
> Xen. That struck me as interesting since I would think that you'd want
> all the raw processing power you could get for rendering and what is the
> use of segregating it. Oh well, I don't know anything other than that
> about their setup.
>
>

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