Crysis + 9 VMs: Core i7 and 24GB RAM

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.
different types of ram matter less I find!
I only find it strange to run 24GB of DDR3 RAM without a passive cooling blade
 
Crucial. Preferably Ballistix or Ballistix Tracers. My 8 GB of DDR2-800 Ballistix Tracers run fast and tight without raising voltages which gives me confidence.

Oh, and they're made in Idaho!
Buy American!
 
[citation][nom]ProDigit80[/nom]different types of ram matter less I find!I only find it strange to run 24GB of DDR3 RAM without a passive cooling blade[/citation]
That's one of the points they're trying to prove I believe. They don't need a cooling blade.
 
I usually just go with the cheapest. And in local markets, Kingmax Mars DDR2 800 is usually cheapest of them all. All the computers I've built have Kingmax in them, and I have never had any problems. So cheap or "value" RAM is a way to go. And DDR3 of ANY kind is still not on that list sooooo... kinda pointless for now :)
 
[citation][nom]Article[/nom]Which memory manufacturer do you prefer? Do you care about any particular brand? Or are you game with any memory that's simply compatible?[/citation]

Anything brandname that isn't corsair is fine in my book. Hyperx, ballistix, black dragon, anything. I think memory's one of the places where you can pick what is available instead of having to worry about getting just the exact product you're looking for. Well except for corsair in my book, cause they appearently can't perform up to spec, and the customer support is almost as poor as asus homepage's load time.
 
AFAIK VMware doesn't support DirectX, hence it is not possible to run Crysis or any DirectX game. That's why they only showed the intro/loading screen. I'd like the idea of running ESX Server at home to consolidate hardware. But as long as there is no DirectX support for gaming in one of the guest OS, I won't do it.
 
[citation][nom]elektrip[/nom]AFAIK VMware doesn't support DirectX, hence it is not possible to run Crysis or any DirectX game. That's why they only showed the intro/loading screen. I'd like the idea of running ESX Server at home to consolidate hardware. But as long as there is no DirectX support for gaming in one of the guest OS, I won't do it.[/citation]
It does in its latest workstation and gsx servers. Esx doesn't for obvious reasons.
 
"It does in its latest workstation and gsx servers. Esx doesn't for obvious reasons."

Good news, thanks! I see my 6.5 VMware Workstation's XP guest has directX capabilities. Still it won't run games with reasonable performance since the vga driver is virtualized.

I hope there will be native vga access sometime on virtual machines.
(ps: how to quote here?)
 
[citation][nom]elektrip[/nom]ps: how to quote here?)[/citation]
click the rightmost icon above the post you are interested in - just left of the 'hide' button.

as for speed - well I don't think vmware did intend gaming on a virtual box, but I suppose if their virtual desktop system catches on in the real world (and not only on presentations), they might have an interest in making the performance match what you'd expect from the host.
 
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]click the rightmost icon above the post you are interested in - just left of the 'hide' button.as for speed - well I don't think vmware did intend gaming on a virtual box, but I suppose if their virtual desktop system catches on in the real world (and not only on presentations), they might have an interest in making the performance match what you'd expect from the host.[/citation]

thanks, found out after creating the login...can't quote anonymous.
Well I dream of a VMware ESX System with several guests: W2k8 Server as Fileserver, Astaro Security Linux, XP/Vista/7 (and OS X). But as long as there is no native performance for gaming, I still need separate hardware for those specific needs.
 
[citation][nom]elektrip[/nom]thanks, found out after creating the login...can't quote anonymous.Well I dream of a VMware ESX System with several guests: W2k8 Server as Fileserver, Astaro Security Linux, XP/Vista/7 (and OS X). But as long as there is no native performance for gaming, I still need separate hardware for those specific needs.[/citation]
Please change your dream then!
Don't get me wrong, esx is great. But the good thing about it is, that you don't waste as many resources as you would if all were real iron boxes. Do NOT use esx for serious fileserving in a live enviroment. It'll work, but it's just not fast enough. For a license server, or a print server or whatever it's fine. But don't install something that requires heavy IO on top of an esx. You can do that if it's for experimentation, but that's it. I installed a 2008 server with wds one day. And tried to deploy a computer. Works great, but very slowly. Deploying the same image to another system from the real physical box was MUCH faster. Took significantly less time.
Anyway, it will work okay if the workload isn't very high, but you will lose a lot in a maximum transfer rate scenario.
Also, remember that esx doesn't work on just any hardware. You need to shop for hardware that actually works with esx. But most brand name server systems support it. Homebrew might, but probably won't out of the box.
At our company we're working almost exclusively with HP servers, and I know you can get some of those with esx running off of flash on the motherboard itself. So you don't need running a raid 1 on your esx hosts in addition to the raid 5/6/whatever on your storage box. (professional enviroment)

Imo if you want the stuff for 'fun/testing' stuff, just go with a gsx or workstation on your favorite linux or windows platform. Those will run on almost any platform, and you won't be limited to particular storage controllers, motherboards or similar. You'll forfeit the options for VC, HA etc, but in a test enviroment those are worthless anyway.
 
I agree to some extent. I'm a systems engineer and our company uses ESX whenever possible. I implemented ESX for a customer running 4 VMs and the storagepool consists of a local Raid 1+0. ESX and fileserving performs great on FC SANs with dedicated arrays for each VM and dual FC HBAs, but I must agree it's not the same when using 1 local storage pool for all VMs. Still for my private environment, the fileserver would only be used as a NAS solution serving music streams to my Logitech Squeezeboxes. It might be a bottleneck for serving 1080p streams in future...In this case I'd use a separate physical disk for each VM. I guess the bottleneck lies in the ESX filesystem and generally harddrives. I don't want to buy a cheap NAS appliance with poor performance and limited functionality that's why I wanted to DIY a custom ESX host using w2k8. I forget it now and go with separate hardware for each box. GSX/Workstation is fine on my business laptop for testing but a no-go at home, since I want a robust system(s) that doesn't rely on a (shaky) host system (Windows). I opt for EFI-X hackintosh client with dual-boot windows once the game comes out I'm waiting for (operation flashpoint 2). I like OS X and have to mess around with windows enough at the office 🙂 My next build will have Intel X25-E or -M SSDs for System and a networked Raid-Array for storage. I like things ultra-silent and performant.
 
Actually, shouldn't Gigabyte be getting the props here. The number of motherboards out there that crap out when you're not using brand X is sad. Or motherboards that don't like multiple sticks of high density ram etc. Or have some limit because of bios.
 
I have found Kingston memory no more stable than anyone elses. However, Kingston, along with OCZ, have proven to have the best support, and Kingston was even a step above OCZ with their 'no questions asked' policy, where as OCZ often would ask for the old items back, etc...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.