can't run penumbra overture demo

[qwerk]

Hi, I'm trying to run Penumbra: Overture demo in VMWare (guest OS = Windows XP) but it's not working. I get a message about not having vertex shaders or something after running the program. But VMWare Workstation 6.5.1 (which I'm using) allegedly supports Direct X 9.0c up to Shader Model 2.0 right? So what's wrong? My real graphics card is a 9800 GT so it should be more than up to the task. I tried to update the drivers for the virtualized network card (VMWare SVGA II) but there were none. So I'm not sure what is wrong. Does this mean the demo requires a Shader Model higher than 2.0? Or is there something I have to do in VMWare Workstation besides turning on the 3d Acceleration feature in VM settings to get Direct X 9.0c to work? FYI, in case it matters, my installation of Windows XP guest OS is almost completely new, aside from the installation of Mozilla Firefox, VMWare Tools, and Penumbra Overture. I am using Vista 64-bit as a host and Windows XP SP 3 as a guest. Any ideas or comments? Thanks.

[admin]

There are a few things to check:

- Does the guest have the latest tools installed?

- Make sure that you're running the latest video drivers in your host as well.

- Is 3D acceleration also enabled in the guest. To check this run "dxdiag" and select the display tab. You should see information about the Direct3D acceleration state.

Failing that, the game might be looking at the name of the video adapter and comparing that to a list of known manufacturers. If that's the case, there's not really anything we can do to support this game. We've seen a few games that do this. The game might also be looking for a some other capability that we don't support.

[qwerk]

Thanks Alex-- yes to all 3 of the above unfortunately. I guess I'll ask around the Penumbra forums to see if there is a workaround since it doesn't seem to be a problem with VMWare Workstation and/or a result from my misuse of it.

[TheLoneVM]

I am 99% sure that Penumbra uses OpenGL based engine. I remember trying to test this game awhile back. So it's going to be a no-go for the time being...