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A '''[[wikipedia:x86_virtualization|hypervisor]]''' is a program that takes advantage of an architectural quirk in [[Intel CPUs]] hardware to run emulated software at near-bare-metal speeds, running modern operating systems faster than [[POS_(Pong_Consoles)_CPUs_and_Other_Chips#Intel_CPU.27s|emulators]] especially with [[Wikipedia:X86_virtualization#Hardware-assisted_virtualization|hardware-assisting]], but running video games slower than native hardware. This is possible because the processor is designed to execute code in a hierarchy that allows less-privileged software to run almost unmodified. For any instruction in a program that requests more privileges, such as those used by drivers, the hypervisor steps in to emulate the hardware response. There are two types of hypervisors;
# A '''bare-metal hypervisor''', which is the operating system.
# A '''software hypervisor''', the ones many are familiar with. They hook into the kernel of an existing operating system (such as Linux or Windows NT) and run alongside the rest of the software on the system.
|[[QEMU]]
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|[https://www.qemu.org/download/ {{QEMUVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}|-|[[VirtualBox]]|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|FreeBSD|Solaris}}|<br/>[https://wwwgithub.virtualbox.orgcom/wikikjliew/Downloads {{VirtualBoxVer}}qemu-3dfx qemu-3dfx ($)]
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|[[VirtualBox]]
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|[https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads {{VirtualBoxVer}}]
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!colspan="6"|Mobile / ARM
;[[QEMU]]
:A general-purpose emulator that supports a wide range of hardware for use on a multitude of platforms. Used to be a hypervisor by way of KQEMU but has been deprecated in favor of other systems like KVM (a kernel module for Linux and FreeBSD) and HAXM (which is developed by Intel). QEMU has been used to emulate several non-PC x86 machines like [[XQEMU]]/[[Xemu]] for the [[Xbox emulators|Xbox]], and [[Orbital]] for the [[PlayStation 4 emulators|PlayStation 4]]. The non-specific application of QEMU allows emulators like XQEMU and Orbital to function as hypervisors without having to write custom-made drivers.
;[[VirtualBox]]
;Virtual PC
:Microsoft's original offering for consumers, originally made by Connectix as commercial software until Microsoft made it a free download in 2006. Support ended with the introduction of Hyper-V but the last version can be downloaded [http://www.win3x.org/win3board/viewtopic.php?t=19227&language=en here]. Beware that it may cause issues on newer Windows so it's recommended that it's ran on older versions of Windows. As of modern updates of Windows 10 and Windows 11, it is completely impossible to use it. Hyper-V is the official successor, although it lacks support for guests before Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.
==Type 1 hypervisors==
If you're using an NVIDIA card, you also need to configure how the graphics card appears to the VM so that NVIDIA's driver doesn't reject the card.
If you're using Windows 10/11 for host OS you can use Hyper-V and GPU-P just like Linux GPU passthrough. [https://github.com/jamesstringerparsec/Easy-GPU-PV#prerequisites jamesstringerparsec's "Easy-GPU-PV" batch script] for making GPU Paravirtualization on Windows Hyper-V easier.
==Emulation issues==
Hypervisors don't have direct access to the graphics hardware with few exceptions including Virgil/Virtio GPU available in QEMU (only works with Linux guests) and VMWare ESXi GPU passthrough, which means graphics card emulation is less than ideal for video games that use 3D APIs. However, 3D acceleration in hypervisors today is capable of running fairly demanding video games or other 3D applications with a few drawbacks such as limited DirectX API versions. Every hypervisor has a different approach to handling 3D graphics, and most of the time companion programs such as VMware Tools have to be installed in virtualized operating systems. Supports for OpenGL are slightly better than Direct3D since it doesn't have to be reverse engineered, but most Windows games (including ports) use Direct3D.
===[[Macintosh line#x86|macOS]]===
There's an ongoing effort to get macOS installations working on hypervisors that run on non-Apple hardware. Such support has historically been low or non-existent since Apple makes no effort to support standard PC hardware. Some people have gotten this to successfully work on KVM/QEMU, with an example/setup guide for Debian/Ubuntu hosts being available [https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM here].
Despite many of the common operating systems including legacy ones such as MS-DOS, OS/2, Novell Netware, etc. are being supported by modern hypervisors, some obscure (e.g. [https://templeos.org/ TempleOS]), abandoned (e.g. [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%85%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97 Chokanji 1~4]), beta or experimental (e.g. [https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_95 Windows "Chicago" Beta]) operating systems may still fall out of the range and having issues, especially when relying on specific hardware configuration or old quirks that no longer presents in modern PC hardware.
===Hyper-V feature conflict issue===[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/application-management/virtualization-apps-not-work-with-hyper-v Many third-party Type 2 virtualization applications don't work together with Hyper-V feature from 'Control Panel/Windows Features']. Affected applications include "VMware Workstation" and "VirtualBox". These applications might not start virtual machines, or they may fall back to a slower, emulated mode ('''no''' VT-x, nested paging etc.) Using a low-level [[POS_(Pong_Consoles)_CPUs_and_Other_Chips#Intel_CPU.27s|Intel CPUs]] emulator to run these operating systems may ease out such problems compared to hypervisors.
==See also==
* [[POS_(Pong_Consoles)_CPUs_and_Other_Chips#Intel_CPU.27s|Intel CPUs]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Not really emulators]]
