Problems trying to run Microsoft Flight Simulator X

[djsuson]

Dear All,

I recently bought the Microsoft Flight Simulator X game. I want to use it on my Windows XP virtual machine. Currently I'm running Workstation 6.0.0 on a linux machine. The error message that I get when I try to start up the game is

Flight Simulator is not working with your video card.

Verify that you have the latest drivers installed for your video card.

Flight Sumulator will now exit.

The virtual machine uses the VMware SVGA II video adapter that comes with the VMware tools. Does anyone know if I can use Flight Simulator X on the virtual machine? If so, how?

Thanks,

Dan Suson

[RDPetruska]

Workstation 6.0.0 is quite old. You may want to consider updating to the latest, 6.5.1, in which the 3D Graphics has been much improved and is no longer considered "experimental".

[djsuson]

Dear RDPetruska,

I just saw that VMWare is up to version 6.5. What surprises me is that the

automatic update in vmware never caught that an upgrade is available. I'm

currently on hold with VMWare trying to find out if it costs to go from 6.0.0

to 6.5.

Thanks,

Dan

[RDPetruska]

Nope, every minor version or revision version change is an upDATE and is free. Major version changes are upGRADES and cost something.

[djsuson]

Dear RDPetruska,

        Sorry for the delay but I wanted to get all my facts together first. There are some good news items and some bad. The good news is that VMWare said that I was eligible for a free upgrade from 6.0.0 to 6.5. It took a little while to get it working correctly, but I accomplished this on both computers. The

bad news is that it didn't help and I'm still unable to run the flight simulator.

        I've updated the vmware-tools to make sure I'm running the latest set. Windows thinks my adaptor is VMware SVGA II. I know that the real adaptor is a NVIDIA card. I don't know if it would help to try and install the drivers for it as the VMWare bios doesn't see the adaptor as NVIDIA either. At least

I think this is the case as the bios screen goes by too fast for me to activate!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

[davidhaase]

Hi,

I think to run FSX in a virtual machine is no good idea since this piece of software needs native 3D power and hi-end hardware to provide

the joy of flying in a pleasable way. I'm a FlightSim fan and and I tested FSX on different hardware. I can say that FSX is very performance-hungry.

You should better use a dual-boot system an run FSX in a native Windows environment. You could also try to use wine or cedega to get FSX running under Linux

but I don't think that it will work properly.

Cheers,

David

„What's Up, Doc?“

[BrianBisaillon]

In my opinion, the value of running Microsoft Flight Simulator X in a virtual machine is to run it as a dedicated server. Microsoft did not release a standalone server product for the GameSpy multiplayer aspect of FSX. In order to get to the point where you're hosting a multiplayer session you need to be able to launch the game with Direct3d support to get you to the point where you're able to go into the session as a Tower Controller at an aiport hub. From a resource perspective all you would have to do is turn down all of the settings in the game to their lowest possible settings in this particular case because it wouldn't matter.

This opens up other options as well such as running FSHost to serve as a flight plan server, Skype or Teamspeak as an alternative to GameSpy for voice and a Web Server to host information about your virtual airline. You can run all of this inside the same virtual machine so long as you allocate enough resources to it.

Once all of that is setup and running you would just minimize the virtual machine and run FSX on your native OS so you can fly with friends on your FSX server. If you have a multicore CPU, lots of RAM and separate hard or solid state disksyou could just dedicate some of those resources separately to the virtual machine. This would go a long way towards limiting the performance impact of the virtual machine on your system.

I have been eyeing Direct3D support in virtualization technologies for quite some time now because I want to be able to do this because it's a hobby I enjoy. If Virtualbox achieves decent enough Direct3D support and integrates it as a part of their out-of-the-box open source solution for FREE I would certainly use it instead of paying for VMware Workstation. Actually, as of right now after having tried Virtualbox, I see no need to run VMware Workstation other than Direct3D support but as this thread indicates it doesn't live up fully to what I need it to do just yet.

On a separate note I wish VMware would rework VMware Server because I think Virtualbox is a lot better. Either that or just make VMware Workstation FREE, drop VMware Server and focus on making money from ESX and other corporate products. Use VMware Workstation as Open Source to create new market opportunities with home users. That's my 2 cents...