If you're running Windows 98 in VMWare (as your subject line indicates) then Windows 98 can only see the hardware that's presented to it by the virtual machine, not your actual, physical hardware. Check the device manager and see for yourself.

One of the main features of virtualization is to protect your hardware from viruses and malware. The more actual hardware you give your VM access to, the more damage a rogue program can do to your system. That's why hardware is emulated in a VM instead of using your actual hardware. If you get infected, all you have to do is reboot your VM and the malware is gone because it can't create a permanent hiding place for itself inside a VM.

christo wrote:

Noob question: is there a possible way to find some drivers for the present PC's to win98?
I mean Intel GMA video cards.

I early GMAs have Win98 drivers. They're kinda difficult to find on Intel website, but they're there.

filipetolhuizen wrote:

christo wrote:

Noob question: is there a possible way to find some drivers for the present PC's to win98?
I mean Intel GMA video cards.

I early GMAs have Win98 drivers. They're kinda difficult to find on Intel website, but they're there.

Even if he had drivers, they wouldn't do any good because the virtual machine cannot see the video card that is physically connected to the system. it can only see the emulated video card.

Has anyone tried the supposed virtualized 3D acceleration in these? VirtualBox and VMWare both have some sort of attempt at it.

Last time I tested it, it was not a great deal. Virtualbox only supports DirectX8 and later, in 2000 and later guests. That means that:

- Windows 9x has no 3D acceleration.
- Games using DirectX 7 or earlier (Final Fantasy VII, Diablo II, those things) won't work. You can try this with dxdiag... it works, but fails some tests.

I think that VMWare has the same limitations, but I've not tried.

Vmware is the same. DX8+ and OGL in Windows 2000+ guests.

The only way to use D3D/OGL in Vmware/VirtualPC with 9x guests is to use software D3D/OGL. (Swiftshader/Mesa3D)

Only DOSBox (with patches) offers D3D/Glide in Windows 9x.

any of the mainstream hypervisors are only good for running old apps with the guest OS at best... none of them were ever designed for gaming in mind
also, because VMware no longer officially supports anything over than Win2k, there are no new VMware Tools for Win9x... the last version of VMware tools for it is version 7.7.0 build 378486, which means the last version of VMware to officially support this is with "hardware version 7", which is what VMware Player 3.x, VMware Workstation 7.x, and VMware ESX/ESXi 4.x uses... in otherwords, no further development of VMware Tools (or the drivers that are part of it) will be made, this means there's no hope of any future driver that will bring 3D support, unless someone made something that will work

3D support is slowly being added to the newer Windows guests, but it's support is shaky at best... don't count on it, use DOSBox if you can!

I need it only for my mother. She wants to run foxpro 2.0 (which is a win3.1 version). And win98 needs more than 16 colors. Thats all 😀

So you say that vmware dont use the original video card of the computer, it uses only an emulated one. Okay. All the settings I have in vmware in the display section are: "accelerate 3d" and "use host setting for monitor" or "specify monitor numbers".
If I want to put an old 3dfx or maxtor card in it, what should I do?

Vmware doesn't use your host graphics card directly it uses the additions installing in the guest operating system that then talk to the virtualization software and then run the graphics on your host.

If you put an old 3dfx or maxtor card in your computer then that wouldn't help matters because usually the virtualization software is picky about what host graphics cards they support.

If you want a VM to see host hardware then you need virtualization software and hardware supporting " Intel VT-d". THEN and ONLY then can the VM see the actual graphics card.

Foxpro doesn't use D3D or OGL so there's nothing to worry about.

The following assumes the guest is Windows 9x+:

Install the VM additions in the guest.
Install your app in the guest.
Run the app.
Done

christo wrote:

I need it only for my mother. She wants to run foxpro 2.0 (which is a win3.1 version).

Windows 3.1 runs well enough in DOSBox.

And win98 needs more than 16 colors.

What gave you that idea? The standard Win9x VGA driver is 16 colors. You can even persuade it to run in black and white if you really want to

Ok. First of all, I need win98 with more than 16 colours. So I need a driver.

You say that there is an emulated card in vmware. Ok. Where can I see the type of that card? Where can I get a driver to it?

And anyway. This is a laptop. So I dont want to put a phisical video card into it. I used this expression to change the type of the emulated video card in vmware. Or is that impossible?

Install the VM additions in the guest. (Video driver is included with additions)
Install your app in the guest.
Run the app.
Done

If all else fails, use VBE display driver. It should work with any video card, but it won't be the best solution.

DosFreak wrote:

Vmware doesn't use your host graphics card directly it uses the additions installing in the guest operating system that then tal […]
Show full quote

Vmware doesn't use your host graphics card directly it uses the additions installing in the guest operating system that then talk to the virtualization software and then run the graphics on your host.

If you put an old 3dfx or maxtor card in your computer then that wouldn't help matters because usually the virtualization software is picky about what host graphics cards they support.

If you want a VM to see host hardware then you need virtualization software and hardware supporting " Intel VT-d". THEN and ONLY then can the VM see the actual graphics card.

Foxpro doesn't use D3D or OGL so there's nothing to worry about.

The following assumes the guest is Windows 9x+:

Install the VM additions in the guest.
Install your app in the guest.
Run the app.
Done

at this time, VMware Workstation/Player does not support VT-d, so that's a shame because it would be nice to be able to take advantage of that... I had to disable it because VMware Player would then run in software virtualization instead of hardware 😠

christo wrote:

Ok. First of all, I need win98 with more than 16 colours. So I need a driver.

You say that there is an emulated card in vmware. Ok. Where can I see the type of that card? Where can I get a driver to it?

And anyway. This is a laptop. So I dont want to put a phisical video card into it. I used this expression to change the type of the emulated video card in vmware. Or is that impossible?

as DosFreak said, installing VMware Tools (or any of the guest system additions that's part of VirtualBox, VirtualPC, etc) will automatically install ALL drivers for the virtual hardware

you need to understand the concept that virtual is virtual... everything you are touching is just like a whole separate computer, with its own video card, own sound card, own floppy drive, etc... there are limitations to what you can and cannot directly attach to the guest (the virtual computer)... so any fancy video card won't really help (and you will only need a shaders 2.0 3D capable card if you are installing Vista or 7 and wanting Aero), but a fast hard drive or lots of RAM will, depending on what OS you're running and how many guests at the same time

as far as running older Windows on VMware, I recommend running VMware Player 3.1.5 or VMware Workstation 7.1.5... VMware Player 4.x and VMware Workstation 8.x dropped official support for Win9x (but it will still work), requires a 64-bit CPU and is a little buggy

There's no particular advantage to running Workstation, especially considering that it isn't freeware, right?

right...
the only reason to run workstation is if you want to use snapshots (great for testing software and configuration changes)... workstation also has a better management interface for multiple guests, and it also adds a toolbar for you to easily suspend/start/turn off/take snap shots of your guests... player has no toolbar and no snapshot feature, nor are there little cool extras like the ability to auto update VMware Tools as new versions become available, nor quick/direct ability to capture screenshots then save to the host, for example

so yeah, no real need to buy VMware Workstation unless you're a heavy user... Player works just fine for everyone, and it supports Windows 7's XP Mode migration (migration feature works only correctly with Player 3.x or Workstation 7.x at this time... it's broken in Player 4.x/Workstation 8.x), just like VirtualBox does! XP Mode works faster with VMware but it has no start menu integration nor seamless guest to host app operation for XP mode like VirtualPC does... so it's up to the user to decide which benefits outweighs the disadvantages.... for me, I want the speed, so I use VMware 😀

The one thing I can't stand about VMware is that every time there's an update from 4.0.3 to 4.0.4, say, you're supposed to
Uninstall your existing version
Restart your computer
Install the new version
and restart your computer again.

Actually, the other thing is that their website has an obnoxious sign-in process, but at least the updates can be downloaded directly from the application now. Except you're not given any handy way to save the download for next time. 😒