Will this laptop setup bottleneck the I3 2330M

[rds1220]

I have a person who was asking me alot of questions about Virtual Machine and how much an I3 2330M can handle. His laptop has the following:

I3 2330M processor
4 Gigs of RAM (maxed out already)
500 Gig HDD at 5400RPM

What he wanted to do is use the laptop to play older games that used Windows 2000, ME, XP and Vista but are not compatible with a 64 bit OS. So what he was going to do was download VM http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/oraclevm/index.html?sckw=srch:virtual-machine&SC=srch:virtual-machine and run it in virtual 32bit XP mode. His question how much resources does virtual machine take up? Also we it affect games?I guess what he means is will the normal background programs plus VM and the games be to much for a dual core I3 to handle with his overall setup. My first thought is probably not since it is a dual core but with hyperthreading. Hyperthreading would help make the background junk and VM run faster leaving more resources for games which aren't affected by hyperthreading. What do you guys think.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Has he tried running the games in compatibility mode first?

 

[InvalidError]

Depending on how much RAM the VM needs to run the games, 4GB might be a little tight. Not sure about how much 3D performance VM video drivers might have, assuming they pass themselves off as GPUs at all. If they don't, then all 3D goes to software rendering and some games might refuse to run.

 

[rds1220]

Has he tried running the games in compatibility mode first?

Truthfully I'm not 100% sure so I can't really answer that. From what he said though it sounds like he has tried that and it didn't work but I would have to specifically ask him if he has tried that or not and get a straight out answer.

Depending on how much RAM the VM needs to run the games, 4GB might be a little tight. Not sure about how much 3D performance VM video drivers might have, assuming they pass themselves off as GPUs at all. If they don't, then all 3D goes to software rendering and some games might refuse to run.

That's what I was wondering. I've played around with VM but don't really know much about it. I understand how it works and how it virtually runs a 32 bit OS within a 64 bit OS but other than that I don't know how much resources it takes up. At idle he's using about 1.10 Gigs of RAM or 28% of overall memory.