May202012

Would it be possible to install Hyper-V and run a high performance gaming Windows 7 image on it?

Mason Bourdeau asks:

For various reasons I am looking into whether it would be possible to install Hyper-V (or a like product) on a high performance desktop computer and run modern video games in a Windows 7 virtual machine.

Lets assume that the hardware is super powerful and not an issue. Does Hyper-V, or similar, support high quality, high demand gaming level graphics?


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System: Hyper-V running Windows Server 2008 R2
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2 Answers -

0 votes

ha14

May 20, 2012

virtualised PC uses emulated hardware this is true so the graphics card used so will be not be as good as a real high end gaming card. This means you won’t be able to play recent games within the virtualised installation, you can use DOS games?
http://blog.usagamesinteractive.com/?p=35

Gaming on Windows Virtual PC
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/01/14/gaming-on-windows-virtual-pc.aspx

0 votes

Mike

May 20, 2012

The main problem in virtualization is the graphics acceleration ~ it simply isn’t as good as running a simple host system.

So if you want to run some DirectX 10 or 11 games you are better of with a simple host system e.g. dual-boot.

You could also try creating a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) with your game on it and boot it ~ this is somewhat like the middle-way.

As for virtual environments and high-end graphics you will have to wait for NVIDIA VGX to kick off ~ it may deliver the speed necessary for this usage.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/vdi-desktop-virtualization.html