6 replies to this topic

[pmdci]

Hello there,

I currently have Mac OS X (10.7 Mountain Lion) running under VMWare Workstation 8 on Windows 7. I have 16GB of RAM and I dedicated 4 to MacOS X

At first I wasn't very happy with the video performance. But after getting some SVGA II drivers here at Insanely Mac, I reckon the video performance is alright considering is a Virtual Machine.


What I am looking for is a VM that would give me a fair 2D and at least some general audio playback capability (something tells me running Logic Pro under a VM would never be a good idea).

I can't stop but wonder whether VirtualBox would be better than VMWare, mainly because with virtual box there aren't any hacks I must do in the virtualization software to run Mac OS X. I mean, with VMware I had to "unlock" Mac OS X as a guest OS option. Plus, perhaps I am wrong but I believe that it would also be easier to get audio and video? working at a better performance, since I reckon that Oracle thelselves would be working to provide decent drivers for Mac OS X under Virtual Box.

Before I venture into trying to run Mac OS X under VirtualBox just for the sake of comparison (and risking wasting some precious time when I could be doing something more productive, like playing The Witcher 2 or diablo 3 ) I would rather "hear" what the community here has to say. What do you guys reckon?

Also I never ran ######. on my Mac OS X VM as I thought this is only really necessary in "physical" (as in non-VMs) Mac OS X installs. But I have a feeling that I might be terribly wrong

Any suggestions / recommendations are greatly appreciated. I am a total "noob" in the hackintosh scene. So my appologies in advance

Cheers!
P.

[PookyMacMan]

Do you mean 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion?

From what I know, VMWare presents an emulated actual graphics card to the VM, and I believe there are ways to get QE/CI (hardware 3D acceleration) on VMWare. However, on VirtualBox it presents it's own virtual graphics card to the VM, and since there are no guest additions for Mac OS X it is impossible to get QE/CI working. QE/CI is essential to many parts of the OS, so I think it might be a no-brainer.

On VMWare, you will have to install a boot loader and drivers afterwards. However, I would not use Multi Beast on any system, virtual or not. Quite unreliable. I would simply find the boot loader and drivers manually.

I personally believe that it if you need to have Windows and OS X, it is more profitable to arrange a dual-boot rather than a VM, because when it runs in a VM it is not quite like native (particularly games), but I would use a VM only if I absolutely had to run both OSes at the same time. OTOH, it might be more profitable to run Windows in a VM on OS X...

[Donk]

Neither product can do QE/CI. VMware presents its own graphics card. VMware does have audio. However the simple answer is forget playing games on a virtualized OSX environment, probably wont work and not worth spending the time trying.

[pmdci]

Hi PookyMacMan (cool nick btw)

Thanks a lot for your help and patience with my noob questions

Yes I meant LION, not Mountain Lion (sorry). I reckon I will get the 10.8 when the RTM is out.

I reckon by combining what both you and Donk and you said below, VMware seems to be the "keeper". I installed Mac OS X 10.7 using a "template" VMware that was already configured to boot. It seems to work fine and I didn't have to do any further modifications with regards to booting.

However I am pretty sure that future system updates might "break" this predefined boot loader configuration and I might need to patch the VM up for it to keep working. In fact I tried an update the other day and my Mac OX VM hanged on the grey apple logo after reboot. Thank heavens I took a snapshot so I reverted the mess.

Now, when you said that you use ####### on any system, did you intend to say that you would NOT use it? Where could I get the bootloader and re-apply it in case I need before/after a system update?

Also, how is the audio working for you guys under a VMware? I got some audio driver I found whilst crawling through Google but I am not sure I got the latest or the best one out there. Any pointers?

Thanks for all the help!

P.

[Donk]

Use my Unlocker for VMwareall posted in this forum. No need for anything other than retail copy of OS X.

[PookyMacMan]

Yes, I meant do NOT use Multi Beast! Me and my typos...

You can google for Chameleon packages and for your proper drivers.

Is this a retail installation? Updates shouldn't break the system...

[Mr. Surge]

Exactly what I needed.