Changes

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#x86_CPUs|emulators]] especially with [[Wikipedia:X86_virtualization#Hardware-assisted_virtualization|hardware-assisting]]''', but running video games slower than native hardware. This 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. But even so running video games still slower than native hardware naturally. There are two types of hypervisors;

|VMware Workstation Player/Pro|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}}|15.5.1|{{✓}} ||{{na|text=TBD}}|-|Oracle VM VirtualBox|align! colspan=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|FreeBSD|Solaris}}|"6.1.0"|{{✓}} ||{{na|text=TBD}}PC / x86

|[https://www.qemu.org/download/ {{QEMUVer}}]<br/>[https://github.com/kjliew/qemu-3dfx qemu-3dfx ($)]|{{✓}} ||{{na✓}} ||{{✓}}|text-|[[VMware Workstation]]|align=TBDleft|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}}|[https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/#all_products {{VMwareWorkstationVer}}]|{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}

|11{{VMwareFusionVer}}|{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}|-|[https://www.5parallels.1com/ Parallels Desktop]|align=left|{{Icon|macOS}}|18|{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}|-|[[VirtualBox]]|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|FreeBSD|Solaris}}|[https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads {{VirtualBoxVer}}]|{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{~}}|-!colspan="6"|Mobile / ARM|-|UTM|align=left|{{icon|macOS}}|[https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/releases {{UTMVer}}]|{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{na?}}|-|VMOS|textalign=TBDleft|{{Icon|Android}}|[https://www.vmos.com/ 1.0.63]|{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{?}}

;VMware Workstation Pro[[QEMU]]:Is also available A general-purpose emulator that supports a wide range of hardware for Linux, though the Windows version has better 3D support because use on a multitude of its native Direct3D implementationplatforms.:;VMware Workstation Player::Formerly VMware Player, Workstation Player is VMware's free offering Used to be a hypervisor by way of KQEMU but lacks has been deprecated in favor of other systems like KVM (a few features 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 snapshots[[XQEMU]]/[[Xemu]] for the [[Xbox emulators|Xbox]], and [[Orbital]] for the [[PlayStation 4 emulators|PlayStation 4]].:;VMware Fusion::A macOS portThe non-specific application of QEMU allows emulators like XQEMU and Orbital to function as hypervisors without having to write custom-made drivers.

;Oracle VM [[VirtualBox]]:Is based on QEMU, but is not a fork of it. VirtualBox is open source but it has an extension pack that adds features common on standard PCs like USB 2.0, 3.0, PXE boot, and hard drive encryption. It is generally the easiest to set up and get running.

;[[QEMUVMware Workstation]]Pro:A general-purpose emulator that supports a wide range of hardware Is also available for use on a multitude of platforms. Used to be a hypervisor by way of KQEMU but GNU/Linux, though the Windows version has been deprecated in favor better 3D support because of other systems like KVM (a kernel module for Linux and FreeBSD) and HAXM (which is developed by Intel)its native Direct3D implementation. QEMU has been used to emulate several non-PC x86 machines like :;[[XQEMUVMware Workstation]] Player::Formerly VMware Player, it is VMware's free offering but lacks a few features like snapshots. ;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 [[Xbox emulators|Xbox]], and [[Orbital]] for introduction of Hyper-V but the last version can be downloaded [[PlayStation 4 emulators|PlayStation 4]http://www.win3x.org/win3board/viewtopic.php?t=19227&language=en here]. The non-specific application 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 QEMU allows emulators like XQEMU Windows 10 and Orbital Windows 11, it is completely impossible to function as hypervisors without having to write customuse it. Hyper-made driversV is the official successor, although it lacks support for guests before Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.

;Hyper-VVMOS:Microsoft's server-oriented hypervisor. Requires a ProA program that runs another copy of Android on the current Android system, Enterprisewhich would be useful for running multiple copies of the same application simultaneously, or Education version running applications that rely on older/newer versions of Windows 10.:;Virtual PC::Microsoft's original offering for consumersAndroid, originally made by Connectix as commercial software until Microsoft made it a free download in 2006. Support ended with the introduction of Hyper-Vtesting out different Android system variations, but or safely executing operations/applications that are likely to harm the last version can still be downloaded [https:system and//www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 here]or user data.

Many type 2 hypervisors include some sort of additional software that can be installed in a guest. This software listens to the hypervisor and facilitates communication between the guest and host, allowing for features like automatic screen resizing (where the host measures the height and width of the window and sends an optimal size for the guest to resize the display to), clipboard sharing (where anything copied on the host can be pasted in the guest), shared folders (where a directory on the host can be made available for access from a guest using a built-in file server and a direct network connection to the guest), and mouse integration (where the hypervisor emulates an absolute pointing device like a drawing tablet to give the impression that moving the cursor in and out of the machine's display is seamless). Two Three hypervisors are known to have them;

<!--* SPICE Guest Additions (for use with libvirt and/or QEMU on UNIX/Linux hosts) 

VFIO (short for Virtual Function I/O) is a Linux kernel driver for PCI passthrough, its . Its appeal is that it works with graphics cards, meaning hypervisors on Linux can bypass graphics emulation for modern Windows games as opposed to having to use compatibility layers and wrappers. The catch is that the system needs;

* A dedicated monitor, a monitor with multiple inputs, and/or a KVM switch (not to be confused with the KVM hypervisor)

 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. ==Hyper-V Subsets==In May 2019, Windows Subsystem for Linux 2/WSL 2 was announced, introducing important changes such as a real Linux kernel, through a subset of Hyper->V features. WSL 2 differs from [[Compatibility_layer|WSL 1]] in that WSL 2 runs inside a managed virtual machine that implements the full Linux kernel (similar to [[Android_emulators#Emulators|Windows Subsystem for Android/WSA]]). As a result, WSL 2 is compatible with more Linux binaries than WSL 1, as not all syscalls were implemented in WSL 1. There are even feature requests such as [https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/7747 Gamepad support]. ==Emulation Hypervisor issues==

Hypervisors don't have direct access to the graphics hardwarewith 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; none are by any means performant enough , and most of the time companion programs such as VMware Tools have to run modern video games without resorting to hardware passthroughbe installed in virtualized operating systems. Support Supports for OpenGL is are slightly better than Direct3D since it doesn't have to be reverse engineered, but most Windows games (including ports) use Direct3D. ===[[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]. However, running macOS on hypervisors running on actual Mac hardware is natively supported by hypervisor software like Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion. ===Obscure, Abandoned, Beta or Experimental Operating Systems===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. Using a low-level [[POS_(Pong_Consoles)_CPUs_and_Other_Chips#x86_CPUs|x86 CPUs]] emulator to run these operating systems may ease out such problems but its significantly slower performance compared to [[Wikipedia:X86_virtualization#Hardware-assisted_virtualization|hardware-assisted]] [[Hypervisors]]. ===Sound issues===VMware (especially newer versions) has sound related issues with some of the legacy guest operating systems like [[Windows_2000/XP/Vista_emulators|Windows XP]]. According to user reports, sometimes sound stops working OR it become laggy on guest operating system by launching some applications/games. Sometimes audio gets distorted/crackling noise popping. Also you may experience audio related application/game crashes. Usually restarting guest operating system fixes these kind of issues. :Reddit thread: [https://old.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/sb4cml/windows_xp_guest_sound_laggy_no_matter_what_in/ Windows XP guest sound laggy] ===ISBRendererComm error with 3D Acceleration===[[File:VMware ISBRenderer crash.jpeg|thumb|298px|ISBRendererComm crash]]There was a major change in VMware 16.x in how virtual graphics were handled (sandboxed) and it also added support for DX11 in Windows VMs. But due to these changes users reported lots of crashes lately especially with "3D Acceleration". For more information about these type of errors see [https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/ISBRendererComm-Lost-connection-to-mksSandbox-and-MKS/td-p/2838888 this thread]. ===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 and nested paging etc.)

===Even though some reports consider this issue fixed via [[Macintosh line#x86|macOS]https://www.ubackup.com/enterprise-backup/vmware-workstation-and-hyper-v-are-not-compatible.html recent updates (with VMware 15.5.6 and Windows 10 20H1) and WHP windows feature]===There, user reports shows that it's an ongoing effort to get macOS installations working on hypervisorsstill there. Support has historically been low or nonSee [https://old.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/swjp4t/running_vmware_workstation_on_a_hyperv_enabled/ this thread] for more information about this issue. Latest VirtualBox and BlueStacks versions have no problem with Hyper-existent since Apple makes no effort to support standard PC hardwareV feature anymore.

;Related to Hypervisors;* [[Intel Windows_95/98/ME_emulators]]* [[Windows_2000/XP/Vista_emulators]]* [[MacOS]]* [[Android_emulators]];CPUsand Other chips emulation instead of virtualization;*[[POS_(Pong_Consoles)_CPUs_and_Other_Chips]]

[[Category:Computers|*]][[Category:Not really emulators]]