VMWare Player may be a solution to the editor crashing

[dmpdesign]

Since it had earlier been suggested to me to try Windows Virtual PC to remedy the issues some folks (including myself) have with running SOM editors on vista/xp with certain graphics cards and such I figured I would look into it.

My version of windows vista wasnt good enough to install Virtual PC, so I have looked into the next best thing...VMWare.

VMWare offers a free player that acts much like what I would assume Virtual PC can accomplish, the trick is having the VM application to run the windows install youre looking for...cuz its not free to have VMServer to create one.

It just so happens we have a copy of VM Server where I work and I have been able to create a windows XP SP3 appliance for use with VMWare Player...so this week I plan on finding a way to get that 5 gig file home to monkey with it on my vista machine and see if it can make editing SOM on that machine less of a chore.

I will post my results here, and if they are positive, will also host the VMWare appliance so everyone that needs it can download it and use it.

[Holy_Diver]

Question: Will this cost anyone money?

[dmpdesign]

Nope its free, and its working for me on my vista machine!

I can now edit maps, see the 3D preview in the map editor etc and play the game without having to tweak graphics settings.

Only thing is I will have to find a better way to deploy the vmware windows xp file because IPower has been giving me shit about my bandwidth use on the ftp server.

For now, download vmware player, its free...and I will find a way to get you the windows xp environment.

[dmpdesign]

Actually I am still working on figuring out if I can throttle the session a bit to improve in game performance, it lags a bit.

Worst case scenario i can just test the game in my vista OS and edit it in the XP one.

[Holy_Diver]

I will look into this (download links please) but I still don't understand what is going on. Seems weird you're downloading something from your own server onto your personal machine in order to use it and everything is free??

Oh: I see this is/did cost your place of employment money (so someone is paying) but I still don't really follow the logic, but when money is involved anything is possible I guess!!

[dmpdesign]

VMWare player is free, but it has no operating system or anything loaded on it.

To create an operating system to run on VMWare player you need a VMWare Server (costs money). ‎  All VMServer does is allow you to export the operating system and environment running on the computer that VMServer is loaded on, in other words it makes a copy of the OS and the desktop etc. ‎  Once that is done, it creates a file that VMWare Player can use to operate like a virtual pc. ‎  Where I work has several files for different OS's, so I just simply took one and tweaked it to work on my computer.

Now with that said. ‎  I have posted the vmware files you will need to run an instance of windows XP SP3 on your computer.

First go here: ‎  https://www.vmware.com/products/player/

and install vmware player.

Next, login to the ftp and grab the whole directory called "Base XP SP3" from the SOMTools/VMWare/ directory. ‎ 

Note, please when you download this, limit your download speed to under 100k/s, else the ftp provider will send me a nasty email again because I am hogging their bandwidth.

Once you download that, launch VMWare Player, select the SP3 file from that directory and it should launch a Windows XP login screen, the user is Owner, password is Owner.

You will likely have to clean up the desktop and remove software you don't want, but on the bright side it will run the map editor flawlessly...on the not so bright side the VMWare player uses a purely software graphics driver and it will run the game horribly, so you will have to test your changes in your regular windows vista session.

[Holy_Diver]

What server is sending you nasty emails? Work, or your som.com host provider? If not work I'd send them a nasty email back telling them to throttle their own transactions

[Holy_Diver]

Yummmm, another bonus is this will probably work in a Linux environment

[dmpdesign]

It was Ipower that bugged me, they also made me remove all the PS1 eboots I had uploaded because it violated some of their terms.

I agree they should limit their own speeds, but oh well. ‎  They don't care if you have a high download speed, they just dont want people with a high download speed downloading all day, and that windows environment is a huge file.

[Holy_Diver]

What are eboots? And how large is this file we're talking about?