Multiple Virtual Machines simultaneously?

[vicskyline96]

so i have 3 monitors spread next to eachother, and i've already realized that i could have XP mode on one side and 7 on the main, is it possible to run linux, xp, and 7 at the same time? please dont say "well whats the point", that really isn't helpful.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Running multiple VM's at once shouldn't be a problem. Doing so in multiple windows on multiple screens may be a different story. I know VMware Workstation 7.1 can do this, but I'm not sure that Windows Virtual PC can?

Perhaps someone else can confirm?

 

[vicskyline96]

Running multiple VM's at once shouldn't be a problem. Doing so in multiple windows on multiple screens may be a different story. I know VMware Workstation 7.1 can do this, but I'm not sure that Windows Virtual PC can?

Perhaps someone else can confirm?

Thanks, i guess i'll try it then, i'll also look at VMware...

 

[huron]

I know that you can in VMware Workstation, but haven't tried in VMware player (the free version) or in Virtual PC. I think you can "pin" them to the windows, so they will always open in a certain monitor.

 

[darkace]

i wouldn't recommend running more than 1 virtual machine. There isn't a problem wit hard drive space but everything else becomes a problem. From what i understand abt virtual machines is if ur cpu is multicore. each VM will take up one core. If single core ur basically making the cpu switching between processing stuff on ur native and than the VM. Ram is also split is the same concept if u run 1 VM half is native and other half in VM. and if u think more deeply the chipset usually can only process a certain amt of threads from the CPU to other hard ware components. The split works in the same way. Unless you somehow set the priority for the native to run higher than the VM. But than the performance in VM will drop like a brick. So ya my advice is to just run one VM anymore than 1, the system is gonna get really taxed.

 

[huron]

I don't believe that is true. I've used multiple VMs, but it does depend on your processing power and capacity - that's how people can have 10 VMs on a server in a virtualized environment. You get some nice dual-socket quads and a pile of RAM and off you go.

It will share processor and RAM, but you can over subscribe - where you tell it to user 2 GB of RAM, but it will only actually use what it needs, up to that maximum.

Honestly, I have had upwards of 3 VMs (2 XP and 1 Server 2008) running on a decent machine - nothing high end. It only had a dual core CPU and 4GB of RAM and it had no issues at all. I wouldn't do a whole lot on the Host system while running all those guests, but I never had an issue.

I'd love to try it on an i7 with 6GB of RAM or more. I'm sure you could have fun with multiple VMs.

 

[The_Prophecy]

i wouldn't recommend running more than 1 virtual machine. There isn't a problem wit hard drive space but everything else becomes a problem. From what i understand abt virtual machines is if ur cpu is multicore. each VM will take up one core. If single core ur basically making the cpu switching between processing stuff on ur native and than the VM. Ram is also split is the same concept if u run 1 VM half is native and other half in VM. and if u think more deeply the chipset usually can only process a certain amt of threads from the CPU to other hard ware components. The split works in the same way. Unless you somehow set the priority for the native to run higher than the VM. But than the performance in VM will drop like a brick. So ya my advice is to just run one VM anymore than 1, the system is gonna get really taxed.

Provided you have the appropriate hardware (a CPU with 4 or more physical and/or logical cores) this is not a problem at all. VM technology scales very well on today's hardware. Like huron said, just don't try to oversubscribe and you can run multiple VM systems just fine.

I've run 7 VM systems at once with 1 core and 1-2GB of ram each on many occasions (core i7 920 with 12GB of ram in my system). Host and all guest VM systems ran great.

 

[vicskyline96]

Thanks, well, then from the information above^ i don't think that runing two VMs should be a prob for me. i've successfully installed CentOS x86 on the second virtual machine, and it seems to be working fine.
oh, and yes i do have 4 physical cores (Q9550) not sure why my system is not showing on the bottom of the post....