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Petrified-OMO
Taxing Patience
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 Posted - Jan 12 2009 : 19:09:23
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So... I am doing two things right now: evaluating VMWare workstation and Windows 7 Beta.
For awhile I wanted to play around with VMWare. The idea of a virtual machine where I could readily have multiple instances of an OS(s) running and also easily redo one if it becomes cumbersome or infected.
Windows 7 Beta (W7) has provided the perfect excuse since newer versions of Windows tends to take near irreversible ownership of the MBR and testing it in a Virtual environment would mean no chance of W7 taking the MBR over.
I'll post more once I've played with it more.
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Signatures?! We don't need no stinking signatures! |
Country: USA
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burniste
frequent visitor
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Posted - Jan 13 2009 : 06:28:42
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we are going with a VM solution @ work, with an 11 TB san. because of compatabilty
issues, our workstations are still XP. i hope we get a chance to fully test 7 with
our software, and skip vista altogether . . .
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Bedpan-OMO
Too much coffee, Not a good thing.
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Posted - Jan 13 2009 : 08:36:56
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I know I'm in the minority here but after nearly 2 years with Vista I have to say it's way more stable the XP ever was. No crash to desktop, no blue screen of death and never a mysterious reboot, all of which I got with XP.
The only problems I've had have been SP1 (my fault for not turning off my virus scanner) and sound cards. Since the move to the Razer sound card I've been stable. Creative Labs suck!
I guess I'm just tired of the Vista bashing, call me sensitive!
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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, bourbon in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" |
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Specimen-OMO
OMO stalker
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Posted - Jan 13 2009 : 09:36:49
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You're sensitve and I'm not buying Vista  ,not with 7 peeking it's head around the corner.
BTW where've you been?
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Country: Canada
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burniste
frequent visitor
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Posted - Jan 13 2009 : 09:40:07
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apparently, Vista can only handle bot-based games . . . =)
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Petrified-OMO
Taxing Patience
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Posted - Jan 13 2009 : 12:11:14
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I'm not bashing Vista, I just was not satisfied with it's overall performance.
Creative Labs, however, is a bottom feeder. I was very disapointed with Xfi compared to the SB Audigy Platinum I had. Their driver scheme was obnoxious in it's obvious attempt to drive people upgrading to Vista to dump non-Xfi SB cards and replace them with XFi cards which did have Vista drivers.
I too am happy with my Razor sound card. I still need to get a more professional card for music production however as the Razor does not cover have extensive frequency response coverage compared to my old Audigy.
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Arcane
Administrator
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Posted - Jan 14 2009 : 11:23:27
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Guys... you realize that Win 7 is not "just around the corner". It is a 2009 release. Regardless, opinions are what they are. I've been using Vista both at home and at work for 2 years. It is a solid OS. Where folks get into problems is with driver support. Yes I realize an OS is dependent on driver support but don't bash Vista when Vista isn't the issue.
As far as performance is concerned... after SP1 Vista performance, for me, in games, is much better than XP on the same machine (dual boot). I'm also running Win 7 which is yes... even better. My only issue with Win 7 is the big icons... makes it look OS-X like.
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Novus Ordo Seclorum
Knowledge is power... has been since time eternal. Arcane knowledge is thereby ultimate power and can
therefore lead to ultimate corruption. Wisdom (and the experience that comes with age) is a serum for corruption.
Perhaps that is why there are so many Old Men with Arcane knowledge and so few young ones...
Arcane OMO - Circa 2001
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Arcane
Administrator
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Posted - Jan 14 2009 : 11:45:45
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Oh damn... I got so wrapped up with the Vista / Win 7 FUD that I forgot all about VMWare. I absolutely love VMWare (I know I shouldn't say that...) but it does everything that I want. In fact I've been experimenting with it on a new server I have. One of the main problems I've had is the ability to host / install games on my servers. The key reason isn't proc but graphics. With VMWare I'm able to set the VM up to support up to 512MB graphic cards... I've not had a single game install fail yet. The nice thing is that I can finally utilize the capacity I have. The other day I was running X3 Terran Conflict, Freelancer Server, ArmA server, and IL-2 Server all at the same time without any degredation (Dual Xeon 3.6 GHZ Compaq DL-380 G4). Once I get everything stable I should be able to throw up virtual game servers for us much like I used to do with MechWarrior 4.
I really like Hyper-V for running virtual servers but it doesn't provide the flexibility in graphics for running "games". On a side note... why do game developers insist on keeping minimum requirements for dedicated servers the same as the game machine? Most dedicated servers utilize a pretty simple UI and do not process game video... I just can't figure it out...
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Novus Ordo Seclorum
Knowledge is power... has been since time eternal. Arcane knowledge is thereby ultimate power and can
therefore lead to ultimate corruption. Wisdom (and the experience that comes with age) is a serum for corruption.
Perhaps that is why there are so many Old Men with Arcane knowledge and so few young ones...
Arcane OMO - Circa 2001
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Petrified-OMO
Taxing Patience
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Posted - Jan 14 2009 : 12:46:57
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quote:
I really like Hyper-V for running virtual servers but it doesn't provide the flexibility in graphics for running "games". On a side note... why do game developers insist on keeping minimum requirements for dedicated servers the same as the game machine? Most dedicated servers utilize a pretty simple UI and do not process game video... I just can't figure it out...
Perhaps you can enlighten me with regards to Hyper-V vs VMWare.
I would imagine they keep the same specs for the servers due to the chance someone might try to play the game on a server in addition to hosting the game itself. Just a guess.
I like Vista, but until a few months ago, it was very clumsy with regards to the music software I was running. Since Finale and Acid Pro were recently updated to handle Vista and I've purchased those upgrades I have been meaning to reinstall Vista but have been procrastinating (Mainly: I need to back up my Steam and Impulse game downloads but then I start playing around on the machine  ).
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Signatures?! We don't need no stinking signatures! |
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Dirtbag-OMO
freakofnature
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Posted - Jan 14 2009 : 16:18:27
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I'd love to try it. Unfortunately in typical windows fashion the OS was 99% done with the install and just needed a reboot and Ta da...........Nothing! It sits and spins for 10 minutes then comes up and asks me to install. I tell it ok, Install. It then tells me it cannot because I need to do so from within a windows environment. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I think Next I shall start from a formated drive. The first time I tried doing an update. I thought maybe I could keep a bunch of my games and such from Vista. Also this was a 64 bit install.
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Dirtbag-OMO
freakofnature
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Posted - Jan 14 2009 : 16:21:49
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Oh yeah, Whats VMware used for?
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Stingray
frequent visitor
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Posted - Jan 14 2009 : 17:40:36
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Thumbs up to Window 7. I did get the long initial start up I got with Vista. Must be my hardware config. Takes a good 10 minutes or so for install process to get up and going. Once it did, installed in about 20 minutes.
31 Processes running compared to 41+ on vista basic when it was freshly installed.
They made msconfig available in the start menu. How bold of them, very nice! Tells me there not ignoring the enthusiast this time.
Only a few minor hardware issues, didn't try any of my games yet, maybe tomorrow.
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Bedpan-OMO
Too much coffee, Not a good thing.
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Posted - Jan 15 2009 : 10:53:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Specimen-OMO
You're sensitve and I'm not buying Vista ,not with 7 peeking it's head around the corner.
BTW where've you been?
I'll do 7 when it ships, not the beta! My system is solid and I don't need any beta grief!
I'll been playing Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. Addictive as most RPGs are. The single player game is going to take me months to finish.
For online action I'm still playing with Baglady, Fuddy, and Creamated on Ralph's server. Each night we get @7 players against the dreaded bots. (ya, i know, boring)
I've got my eye on Battlestations:Pacific!
http://www.battlestations.net/
this looks like a blast! Don't know if it has multi player too.
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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, bourbon in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" |
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Dirtbag-OMO
freakofnature
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Posted - Jan 15 2009 : 16:49:42
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Hey!!!
Whats VMware?
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Nosehair-OMO
Administrator
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Posted - Jan 15 2009 : 16:53:04
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Thanks DB you are as "stupid" as me.
So pray tell you GEEKS.
plz
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Nosehair-OMO
Administrator
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Posted - Jan 15 2009 : 16:56:33
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Why would one need to have more than one OS on a PC and would that in any way slow things down?
I'd love to start learning Linux as I think (stupid as I am) that Linux will some day RULE THE WORLD and Windows will die a slow and horrible death.
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Bedpan-OMO
Too much coffee, Not a good thing.
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Posted - Jan 16 2009 : 07:09:59
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Getting my GEEK on: 
VMware is a company (and product) that came about because one application on one server, which is the norm, caused computer rooms everywhere to out grow themselves. VMware lets you put multiple operating systems on one server (thus multiple applications per server) thus better utilizing the server's hardware. For example I have a VMware server running 50 applications instead of 50 servers each running one application. VMware is freakin magic and truly a wonderful product!
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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, bourbon in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" |
Edited by - Bedpan-OMO on Jan 18 2009 08:43:45 |
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Petrified-OMO
Taxing Patience
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Posted - Jan 16 2009 : 08:01:44
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I think that sums it up nicely. Thanks Bedpan. 
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Arcane
Administrator
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Posted - Jan 16 2009 : 21:43:16
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Great explaination Bedpan. A lot of developers work strictly in virtual machines now. The benefit for them (and IT guys who have a clue) is that you can save off an image of the VM itself and move it between various servers EVEN if it is a different platform. For example you could set up a VM as a web server including the OS etc. Save that off as a VM image with a Virtual Hard Drive. Now... I can place that image anywhere and have any server that is running the Virtual Server software (VMWare or Hyper-V for example) load that Webserver.... to you and everyone else it looks exactly the same even tho the underlying servers may be completely different. For me the huge benefit once I have this all set up is remember when I had those server crashes... lost a hard drive or the OS became corrupt? With a VM as I described above... no worries... just launch the VM on a different server.
Here is another huge benefit. Today in most IT shops the servers in data centers only run at about 10 - 30% utilization. This is primarily because they are single function devices. Now think about those same servers acting as 2 - 10 servers on the same hardware. From an end-user perspective they see no difference. Same from an application level.
Remember my example of X3 Terran Conflict? There was no way I could install it on my Dual P3 1.4GHz server natively (as part of Win2k). Once I put VMWare on there I told it that the "VM" was a P4D with a 512MB video card etc... it not only installed the program it actually ran with acceptable performance in a 1028x768 full screen. Now... that VM was a window on my main server OS... how fricken cool is that? Just for grins I fired up a duplicate instance so I had X3 running in 2 separate windows, each thinking it was full screen, on the same machine. Of course in this case the performance dropped but not significantly since X3 only supports single processor like most programs today. On this new Dual Xeon Dual Core system I'm building I'm expecting to be able to do a lot of things at the same time... all looking like completely separate servers.
Petri, the largest deal with Hyper-V is that it is part of the Win2k8 R2 OS codebase. That means that it is well integrated. Those services that I want to deploy that are based on MS technology (like Exchange, SQL, ISS, DNS, etc) operate extremely well under Hyper-V. I'm not sure why but the downside is that Hyper-V does not support what I call "gaming machine" profiles. VMWare does. So... I'll likely continue to run both. I'll have a dedicated VMWare server and one Hyper-V server. What I want to test next is VMs in both running on the same server. Technically there shouldn't be an issue...but...
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Novus Ordo Seclorum
Knowledge is power... has been since time eternal. Arcane knowledge is thereby ultimate power and can
therefore lead to ultimate corruption. Wisdom (and the experience that comes with age) is a serum for corruption.
Perhaps that is why there are so many Old Men with Arcane knowledge and so few young ones...
Arcane OMO - Circa 2001
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Country: USA
| Posts: 2980 |
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medicated
frequent visitor
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Posted - Jan 19 2009 : 00:12:24
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Just installed the Windows 7 Beta on an old Athlon 1900+ with 512 megs of ram and 6200 graphics. It settled down after all the updates and ran well. Final check showed 28% CPU and 35% Ram utilization at rest. 100% CPU and 68% Ram browsing web pages. No drivers were needed to be downloaded for Connextant Video Editing card, Nvidia 6200LE, Creative sound card, motherboard or anything. Couldent beleive it. Startup time was fast as XP ever was or faster.
I guess several of you have downloaded the 7 Beta like I have. Far as I can tell...If you have nvidia 6200 & up graphics you pretty much can run Windows 7. Hint...after you register for the beta and get your key...just write it down and refresh the page a few times....write those down too... Is it true about the ability to go from beta to full version without reinstalling?
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 Evil is powerless.....if the good are unafraid. (Ronald Regan)
Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word, and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection. - General Colin Powell
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VMWare and Windows 7 Beta
