3D-Acceleration in VM:
VMware Workstation 5.5 - Experimental support for DirectX 8; also supported with VMGL
VMware Workstation 7.0 and 8.0 - Support for DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.13D
Oracle VirtualBox - with Extension Pack and Guest Additions (PUEL) - OpenGL 2.0 and Direct3D 8/9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtualization_software
VMware and VirtualBox supports 3D-Acceleration only in DX 8 and 9 games. Games with lower DirectX will not work.
From other forum:
Last time I tested it, it was not a great deal. Virtualbox only supports DirectX8 and later, in 2000 and later guests. That means that:
- Windows 9x has no 3D acceleration.
- Games using DirectX 7 or earlier (Final Fantasy VII, Diablo II, those things) won't work. You can try this with dxdiag... it works, but fails some tests.
I think that VMWare has the same limitations, but I've not tried.
Vmware is the same. DX8+ and OGL in Windows 2000+ guests.