NxTop and 3D Games

With NxTop, we have developed a fully symmetric graphics model that unlike any other client hypervisor provides an equivalent experience across all virtual machines, as well as virtual machine portability across PC platforms without the need for hardware-specific drivers inside the OS.

While this architecture does not yet support 3D, we have active development underway to move this architecture from a high quality 2D experience to a 3D-capable architecture. Our implementation of this for OpenGL is very far along, and we expect to have to have it available to try during the next several months. From there, we will continue enhancing the architecture for DirectX and related Windows 3D technologies through the remainder of the year and into 2011.

We encourage NxTop users with interest in 3D to let us know about their specific requirements here in the forums, as we are always looking for beta testers.

Doug Lane
Virtual Computer, Inc.

While I hate to revive an old thread, especially one over two months old, I would like to throw out my request for 3D support as well.

I see this as a huge benefit when using a personal laptop in a BYOPC environment whereas the company provides the business image and the employee can use their personal image as they see fit. Case in point, I work for a small business IT consulting company where I use my personal laptop (Toshiba Qosmio X505-q860) for work and play. I love my 3D games and I know I'm not the only one that could use this type of support from NxTop.

I hope to get my invite to BETA shortly so I can see where things stand currently, my long post might be useless if the features are already available. :-)

Thanks!

Support for 3D graphics and Windows features that rely on 3D graphics will be rolled out incrementally over the next few releases of NxTop. First is OpenGL 3D graphics, then Direct-X 3D graphics, then Direct-X 10 with D3D support, and finally support for the Windows Aero interface. OpenGL support in NxTop is close to a “technology preview” release but there is no specific timeframe available for delivery of these 3D graphics capabilities as standard features. We also need to migrate our current paravirtualized graphics driver from XPDM to WDDM to support Aero.

So there is quite a bit of work to do before we will be able to support the Windows Aero interface, and we are making good progress in this area, but what we are finding as we talk to customers is that 3D graphics is more of a "nice to have" feature that really isn't needed for most business applications.

Of course you can still dual-boot between NxTop and native Windows, which is probably what you are going to do in a BYOPC environment anyhow.

As this post is prior to 3.0, I wanted to check back on the support for 3D. Can we get an updated status?

(PS: Testing with 3.0.1 currently)

Please can you advise on the status of the Windows 7 Aero functionality development and its anticipated release date. Alternatively if the updated graphics driver is already available can you please point me to its download. Thank you! Jan

Although I can see the ability to use CAD as a huge plus, the idea of using a business computer for both business and play boggles my mind.

For those BYOPC type installs simply do NOT install over the old OS rather use the hard drive space at the end of the drive for your NxTop deployments.

This will keep the original OS in place allowing for direct access to everything as normal so you can play games while giving you the ability to choose your boot method at post.

Is there already progress in this area? Is it for example possible to enable Aero glass in a Windows 7 environment?

Regards

Is there an update of even basic 3D support as of 4/12?