Seemingly out of nowhere, Virtualbox 3.0 was released to the masses recently. Since I am already a fan of this software, I decided to give it a shot the very same day I was notified of its release. From what I have seen so far, not much has actually changed on the surface, though this version has laid the groundwork for some amazing things to come later on.
Virtualbox is a virtualization application developed by Sun and is available for Windows, Linux, OpenSolaris, and Macintosh. It allows you to run another operating system (a guest) without dual booting. While I have always been a big fan of Virtualbox, I have always found virtualization (regardless of the application) to be slow and behind the times, so I would only use a virtual OS when absolutely necessary. Virtualbox 3.0 may actually convince me to use the technology more often.
Virtualbox 3.0 builds upon its predecessor and includes improvements that make it a better product overall. As far as I can tell, all of the features from the 2.x series made the jump to 3.0, as well as something really exciting – 3D support for the guest operating system which means support for Direct 3D AND OpenGL! Hardware acceleration for video has always been somewhat of a sore area for virtualization. In the past, If you wanted to use an operating system specific browser or email program, then a virtual machine would fit the bill. If you wanted to use a 3D program (such as a game), you’d be better off just forgetting about it.
When I used to use Windows often, my favorite program was Game Maker. It allowed me to design games relatively easily and was an absolute blast to use. Ever since I switched to Linux full time, that was the one program I never found a Linux equivalent for and miss terribly. You can imagine the first thought that entered my mind when I found out about 3D support being added to Virtualbox – Would Game Maker run on it? I decided to set out on a mission to find out.
I followed the instructions on the official site to add the Virtualbox repository to my Kubuntu Jaunty box. I installed the package “virtualbox-3.0″ and I was ready to go. I installed one of the copies of Windows XP I had that’s been collecting dust for some time, and I also installed the guest additions. The verdict? Game Maker would not run. In fact, nor would anything else that utilized 3D for that matter.
I was extremely disappointed until I discovered in the manual that if you are installing Windows in Virtualbox, you must install the guest additions in safe mode in order to get the benefits of 3D support. After I did that, Game Maker worked except that when playing a created game only half of the screen would show. After playing around with the settings, I was able to get that resolved too. (If you’re wondering, inside Game Maker set the options to change the screen resolution to the resolution of the game, set the refresh rate to “no change” and set the taskbar to autohide, that’s what worked for me). As you can see, while the 3D support isn’t perfect, I am sure that in the future it will get better and the very fact that the attempt has been made to include it is good enough for me.
Unfortunately, USB support still seems to have issues. I tried to hook up a printer to a virtual machine and the guest OS just could not function with it. I also tried to hook up my cell phone via USB and that too wasn’t recognized. I remember having these types of issues with Virtualbox in the past, and it seems that the USB support hasn’t improved yet which is unfortunate. I think that an adequate solution would be to have an option to dedicate a USB port to Virtualbox, so it would have unrestricted access to it. I think VMWare does something like that if I’m not mistaken.
Another nifty feature that Virtualbox 3.0 includes is SMP support with up to 32 virtual CPU’s. Unfortunately only one core of my CPU was able to be utilized in my virtual XP, so I was unable to make use of that feature. In fact, the virtual machine wouldn’t even turn on with that option enabled. Perhaps I am just confused about their intentions with SMP, but having both cores visible in the virtual machines would have been nice.
All in all, Virtualbox 3.0 is amazing. The virtual machines I’ve created ran fast and overall this is a must have program for any power user. It’s hard for me to believe that something this amazing is free. Sure, there are issues with the virtual USB system and 3D support isn’t perfect yet (nor is it advertised to be) but the benefits of this program outweigh any slight shortcomings you may run into. The fact that initial 3D support has been added is only a testament to what’s to come, and I will be excited to see these new technologies perfected as the 3.0 series of Virtualbox continues.
The Good:
Initial support for OpenGL/DirectX has been added
SMP support added
All the great features of the 2.0 series carried over
The Bad:
3D support is hit or miss
USB support doesn’t work as it should
SMP didn’t work for me, though it works for others.
Overall: 4/5 (Great!)
Jeremy is a Certified IT Technician that blogs at ITNewsToday.com in his spare time. He has over ten years of industry experience, and studies the IT industry every single day. Jeremy has become an open source enthusiast over time and is studying for his Linux+ certification. He lives in Waterford MI with his wife Krystal and son Alan.
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I think for SMP to work you have to have an Intel CPU with VT-x support and enable VT-x. On my MacBook with Core 2 Dual, SMP works just fine (and makes everything go even faster), so you might want to see if your mobo and CPU both support it. — I agree that VirtualBox 3.0 is great, and it is one of the reasons my next desktop box is going to be quad core.
Virtualbox 3 does support multi-core processors
It does say that it supports multi-core processors, however that was not the case during my testing. My CPU does support virualization, but when I enable multi core support in Virtualbox, the guest OS will not boot until I disable it.
Hello,
I use VirtualBox and the SMP feature worked very well for me. As by the manual you need to have a AMD-V/VTX capable machine to enable it. Maybe thats the cause of the issue you are having with it.
I do have an AMD-V compatible processor. The computer I use at work has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with VTX but it won’t work on that either. The guest OS will not boot with the option turned on.
Make sure your processor supports virtualization, otherwise SMP won’t work.
For the record my CPU does support AMD-V as far as I know. It’s an AMD Athlon 64 5200+. The computer I use at work I know for sure supports VT-x, it won’t work on that computer either.
You may need to enable the CPUs virtualization feature in BIOS. I have an HP laptop and had to enable it in BIOS before VirtualBox could use the VT-x. May be the same for AMD??
Thanks Bryan, that got me farther. I am now able to select 2 virtual CPU’s and boot my OS just fine after enabling the option. I didn’t even think of that! I still don’t see two cores in the task manager under the virtual machine though.
I must be a dolt, because when I upgraded to version 4.0 it simply stopped working on my Windows machine-at least for me, I could not get it to install any Linux VM’s-just would not work, so I uninstalled and went back to an older version which is working. For me $.o is a huge dissapointment
Of course version 4.0 didn’t work. It doesn’t exist.
You just downloaded and installed some North Korean Virus, and are probably DOS’ing the Pentagon right now. Don’t answer the door (but then, they’ll just break it down.)
USB Support seems to work great for me with linux or windows guests running on a linux host. It took a few to get used to – but I find it very functional. I plug my ipod into my linux host and my windows guest picks it right up and launches itunes. tinker with it a bit – I’ll bet you resolve more issues than you think.
My Motorola phone is seen by my computer as a flash disk. (As it should be). It is available in my computer in Windows without drivers, and Kubuntu as well. When I plug it in to my computer with a virtual machine turned on, the host OS detects it but the guest will not. I created a filter in Virtualbox, but it doesn’t change anything. The same thing happened with my printer.
USB support works quite well, I use Vbox Under OSX 10.5 Its a bit to setup, more then happy to assist drop an email over.
Thank you. You can email me at jlac…@itnewstoday.com (solve the captcha to view the email address). I am using a Kubuntu host. I appreciate your offer to help.
Hi,
you have to add your user to the group vboxuser to use USB in Virtualbox under Kubuntu. I think it is mentioned in the handbook.
If you want to use SMP you have to reinstall Windows XP (with enabled SMP before installation) or replace the hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe with a multiprocessor version. That is an MS issue and Virtualbox doesn’t activate it per default.
I have added my user to the virtualbox group, but that happens automatically during installation.
Why does one need Direct3D support for Game Maker? Looks to me like a 2-D game creation program for which DirectDraw support would be sufficient.
You raise a great question, Bigpilot. However, I do not have an answer for you. For some reason or another, the developers of Game Maker utilize Direct3D even for 2D games. It’s not a very practical decision, but for some reason that’s how they designed it. Older versions of Game Maker don’t have that dependency, though they also don’t have as many features either.
Jeremy, SMP works for me. You’ll need to find yourself a mate who knows about Virtualbox or a bit more about computers. They’ll be able to help you.
USB also works. You have to enable it in Virtualbox. You can review the documentation for that but it should be fairly evident.
SMP works great for me, when I enable it made XP a lot more smoother. btw I am running my computer as Ubuntu with XP in the VM.
As for adding the user to the VirtualBox users group there is a bug where an upgrade ‘breaks’ this functionality. Found it by visiting the VBox forums and fixed the issue. That said I don’t this is the issue here.
Thank you, I will of course try again when I have time to play around with it some more. I enabled the SMP options but the VM won’t boot with the option turned on. I edited my review under the final section to reflect that SMP works but didn’t work for me so I can be more fair. If anyone has any info that will help, email me. jlac…@itnewstoday.com (solve the captcha to see the full address).
Probably because the OS was installed with a single CPU, so a single-CPU kernel was installed. Assuming you’re talking about Windows XP in the VM, you can re-install, or there is a way to ‘repair’ the OS to recognize the 2nd cpu, but I can’t find the instructions on doing this at this time. I know it works though because I had to do this on my computer at work. The ghost image that desktop support used was created on a system with a single CPU. I had one of the first dual-core machines so we had to run that fix.
Sorry I can’t point you to more specific information on how to do this, but I think it basically involved booting from the CD and running repair. But worst case, you can just reinstall. Good luck.
A really interesting green computer technology I found is Userful Multiplier. It’s where multiple people can use the same computer at the same time each with their own monitor, mouse and keyboard. This saves a lot of electricity and e-waste. A company called Userful recently set a virtualization world record by delivering over 350,000 virtual desktops to schools in Brazil. They have a free 2-user version for home use too. Check it out: http://www.userful.com