Vmware

SDL Development
1

Hi,

I’ve seen some people in here talking about VMWare not working with SDL. I
run VMWare and I know that “right now” they are not concentrating on
gamers. :slight_smile: I’ve never even ran an DirectX app in VMWare. Does SDL for
windows require Direct Draw; if so, were out of luck. Below it says
DirectDraw games may run; in which our case they dont. hehe. Here’s
something from their web page:

Which games-related features does VMware provide?
VMware supports:

MS-DOS and popular extensions
Soundblaster compatible PCM (for example, WAV) sound
Fairly fast 2-D graphics

What are some of the limitations in running games in a VMware virtual
machine?
VMware provides some support for DirectX/DirectDraw and will be improving
this support in future. Games that require DirectDraw may run with VMware.
VMware release 1.x does NOT provide support for:

MIDI sound
Joystick ports
Graphics card 3-D hardware acceleration
These features will be supported in future releases of VMware

2

Well, how about add a --using-vmware … Don’t do this in the
./configure but the program itself. Then … wait… how about this…

in the SDL_Video_Init add a SDL_NO_DIRECTDRAW… That way the developer
can check for like -vmware and add SDL_NO_DIRECTDRAW and it won’t even
check for DirectDraw and just fall back on the win32 api…

That way there is also no testing. :slight_smile:

Why this is better:

  1. You don’t have to compile a special version of SDL for VMware.
  2. You don’t have to follow the development of VMWare to know which
    functions NOW work and NOW don’t work anymore.
  3. Once VMWare does support something, you can just leave out the -vmware
    and it will work fine.

Why this sucks:

  1. A developer has to code this into their game; but who cares. hehe…

OR

You can find out how you can tell if it’s a VMWare machine… There has to
be some kind of registry setting somewhere… I will look for you tommaroo
if you want.

Tell me what you think.

see yaOn Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Sam Lantinga wrote:

Hi,

I’ve seen some people in here talking about VMWare not working with SDL. I
run VMWare and I know that “right now” they are not concentrating on
gamers. :slight_smile: I’ve never even ran an DirectX app in VMWare. Does SDL for
windows require Direct Draw

It falls back to native Win32 services if DirectDraw is not available.
The problem with VMWare is that it reports it has DirectDraw, and it
even has the correct version of DirectDraw, but trying to create an
exclusive surface fails with “no directdraw hardware”.

I need to add a test for this, but I don’t know exactly how much
functionality I should test for, or even if SDL can run using reduced
DirectDraw functionality under VMWare.

-Sam Lantinga (slouken at devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software

“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec

3

Hi,

I’ve seen some people in here talking about VMWare not working with SDL. I
run VMWare and I know that “right now” they are not concentrating on
gamers. :slight_smile: I’ve never even ran an DirectX app in VMWare. Does SDL for
windows require Direct Draw

It falls back to native Win32 services if DirectDraw is not available.
The problem with VMWare is that it reports it has DirectDraw, and it
even has the correct version of DirectDraw, but trying to create an
exclusive surface fails with “no directdraw hardware”.

I need to add a test for this, but I don’t know exactly how much
functionality I should test for, or even if SDL can run using reduced
DirectDraw functionality under VMWare.

-Sam Lantinga				(slouken at devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software–
“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec

4

Hi,

I’ve seen some people in here talking about VMWare not working with SDL. I
run VMWare and I know that “right now” they are not concentrating on
gamers. :slight_smile: I’ve never even ran an DirectX app in VMWare. Does SDL for
windows require Direct Draw; if so, were out of luck. Below it says
DirectDraw games may run; in which our case they dont. hehe. Here’s
something from their web page:

There are two versions of the SDL video driver: One which uses standard
Win32 GDI calls and DIBs, and another one which uses DirectDraw. WinDIB
should work fine, except maybe for the audio component. I don’t have VMWare
on my machine and so haven’t tested it.

Nicholas

----- Original Message -----
From: wahle@addell.com (Ryan Wahle)
To: sdl at lokigames.com
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2000 8:15 PM
Subject: [SDL] VMWARE

5

Well, how about add a --using-vmware … Don’t do this in the
./configure but the program itself. Then … wait… how about this…

Try ./configure --disable-directx, it’ll give you the same thing. :slight_smile:

-Sam Lantinga				(slouken at devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software–
“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec

6

OK, But! Then the user either has to compile his own version for VMWare or
the developer does. Wouldn’t it be better to get a flag in the code that
can disable DirectX?On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Sam Lantinga wrote:

Well, how about add a --using-vmware … Don’t do this in the
./configure but the program itself. Then … wait… how about this…

Try ./configure --disable-directx, it’ll give you the same thing. :slight_smile:

-Sam Lantinga (slouken at devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software

“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec

7

OK, But! Then the user either has to compile his own version for VMWare or
the developer does. Wouldn’t it be better to get a flag in the code that
can disable DirectX?

I have a similar problem. One of my upcoming games will only work right
if smpeg is compiled with “–use-mixer” or something like that.

'course, smpeg is small (compared to all of SDL), so I suppose I could
package smpeg WITH the game and have it compile its own copy…

-bill!