A Virtual Gallium3D Driver Coming For VMware

[DeepDayze]

At some point VM 3D acceleration could be mature enough for people to play many graphics intensive games on Windows running in a VM. Imagine loading up Windows XP/W7 in a VM and play a game such as CoD or Crysis at a darn good playable framerate as if you had booted Windows off bare metal?

[TheWind]

That was unexpected. It was, but it wasn't. So as far as graphics acceleration in a Virtual Machine goes wouldn't this be capable of providing graphics acceleration that is as close to bare metal GPU acceleration as possible. If both the host and guest are using Gallium3D drivers could they use Virtualization technologies to connect their drivers, share the hardware, and provide direct acceleration to a guest OS?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: A Virtual Gallium3D Driver Coming For VMware

For months Sun's VirtualBox virtualization software picked up OpenGL and Direct3D acceleration support for virtualized guest operating systems, but now 2D/3D hardware-acceleration support for those running operating systems under VMware's virtualization products are imminent. It was almost exactly one year ago that VMware acquired Tungsten Graphics, but now their motives behind that acquisition are becoming more clear. Being hosted at VMware's headquarters today in Palo Alto, California was a Gallium3D Workshop, where various open-source Mesa developers are currently at and others connecting remotely. At this workshop it has just been announced that a "virtual" GPU driver for Tungsten's Gallium3D driver architecture will soon be publicly released...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzcwNQ